Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group N. ten Oever
Internet-Draft ARTICLE 19
Intended status: Informational G. Perez de Acha
Expires: April 16, 2018 Derechos Digitales
October 13, 2017
Freedom of Association on the Internet
draft-tenoever-hrpc-association-02
Abstract
This document aims to scope the relation between Internet protocols
and the right to freedom of assembly and association. The Internet
increasingly mediates our lives and our ability to excercise human
rights. Since Internet protocols play a central role in the
management, development and use of the Internet, the relation between
protocols and the aforementioned rights should be documented and
adverse impacts should be mitigated. As there have been methods of
protest on the Internet -a form of freedom of assembly- that have
proven to be harmful to connectivity and infrastructure, such as DDoS
attacks, this text aims to document forms of protest, association and
assembly that do not have a negative impact on the Internet
infrastructure.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 16, 2018.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Vocabulary used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Cases and examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1. Communicating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1.1. Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1.2. Multi-party video conferencing and risks . . . . . . 7
6.2. Peer-to-peer networks and systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.2.1. Peer-to-peer system achitectures . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.2.2. Version control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.3. Reaching out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.3.1. Spam, filter bubbles, and unrequested messaging . . . 11
6.3.2. Distributed Denial of Service Attacks . . . . . . . . 12
6.4. Grouping together (identities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4.1. DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.4.2. ASes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. Discussion: The Internet as an association . . . . . . . . . 14
8. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
11. Research Group Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
12.1. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
12.2. URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1. Introduction
The right to freedom of assembly and association protects collective
expression, in turn, systems and protocols than enable communal
communication between people and servers allow these rights to
prosper. The Internet itself was originally designed as "a medium of
communication for machines that share resources with each other as
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equals" [NelsonHedlun], the Internet thus forms a basic
infrastructure for the right freedom of assembly and association.
The manner in which communication is designed and implemented impacts
the ways in which rights can be excercised. For instance a
decentralized and resilient architecture that protects anonimity and
privacy, offers a strong protection for the exercise of such freedoms
in the online environment. At the same time, centralized solutions
have enabled people to group together in recognizable places and
helped the visbility of groups.
draft-irtf-hrpc-research established the relationship between human
rights and Internet protocols, and it provides guidelines for
considerations on the human rights impact of protocols.
This draft aims to take continue the work started in draft-irtf-hrpc-
research by investigating the exact impact of Internet protocols on a
specific human rights, namely the right to freedom of assembly and
association given their importance for the Internet, in order to
mitigate (potential) negative impacts.
2. Vocabulary used
Anonymity The condition of an identity being unknown or concealed.
[RFC4949]
Censorship resistance Methods and measures to mitigate Internet
censorship.
Connectivity The extent to which a device or network is able to
reach other devices or networks to exchange data. The Internet is
the tool for providing global connectivity [RFC1958]. Different
types of connectivity are further specified in [RFC4084]. The
combination of the end-to-end principle, interoperability,
distributed architecture, resilience, reliability and robustness
are the enabling factors that result in connectivity to and on the
Internet.
Decentralization Implementation or deployment of standards,
protocols or systems without one single point of control.
Pseudonymity The ability to disguise one's identity online with a
different name than the "real" one, allowing for diverse degrees
of disguised identity and privacy. It is strengthened when less
personal data can be linked to the pseudonym; when the same
pseudonym is used less often and across fewer contexts; and when
independently chosen pseudonyms are more frequently used for new
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actions (making them, from an observer's or attacker's
perspective, unlinkable)." [RFC6973]
3. Research questions
1. How does the internet architecture enable and/or inhibit freedom
of association and assembly?
2. Is the Internet an assembly or association? Should it be
protected as such?
4. Methodology
In order to answer the research questions, first a number of cases
have been collected to analyze where Internet infrastructure and
protocols have either enabled or inhibited groups of people to
collaborate, cooperate or communicate. This overview does not aim to
cover all possible ways in which people can collectively organize or
reach out to each other using Internet infrastructure and Internet
protocols, but rather cover typical uses in an effort of doing an
ethnography of infrastructure [Star]. Subsequently we analyze the
cases with the theoretical framework provided in the literature
review and provide recommendations based on the findings.
The scope of this research is open protocols and architectures
developed in the IETF, thus closed and centralized Internet platforms
such as Facebook do not fall within the scope of this research.
5. Literature Review
The right to freedom of assembly and association protects and enables
collective action and expression [UDHR] [ICCPR]. These rights
ensures everyone in a society has the opportunity to express the
opinions they hold in common with others, which in turn facilitates
dialogue among citizens, as well as with political leaders or
governments [OSCE]. This is relevant because in the process of
democratic delibration, causes and opinions are more widely heard
when a group of people come together behind the same cause or issue
[Tocqueville].
In international law, the right to freedom of assembly and
association protects any collective, gathered either permanently or
temporarily for "peaceful" purposes. We will later expand on the
definitions and limits of "peacefulness" within these rights. For
now it is important to underline the propery of "freedom" because the
rights to freedom of association and assembly is voluntary and
uncoerced: anyone can join or leave a group of choice, which in turn
means on should not be forced to either join, stay or leave.
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The difference between freedom of assembly and freedom of association
is merely gradual one: the former tends to have an informal and
ephemeral nature, whereas the latter refers to established and
permanent bodies with specific objectives. Nonetheless, one and the
other are protected to the same degree.
An assembly is an intentional and temporary gathering of a collective
in a private or public space for a specific purpose: demonstrations,
indoor meetings, strikes, processions, rallies or even sits-in
[UNHRC]. The right to protest is a conglomerate of various rights,
and the right to assembly is one of them. Nonetheless protest,
unlike assembly, involves an element of dissent that can be exercised
individually whereas assembly always has a collective component
[ARTICLE19]. Association on the other hand has a more formal and
established nature. It refers to a group of individuals or legal
entities brought together in order to collectively act, express,
pursue or defend a field of common interests [UNGA]. Within this
category we can think about civil society organizations, clubs,
cooperatives, NGOs, religious associations, political parties, trade
unions or foundations.
The right to freedom of assembly and association is crucial for the
Internet, even if privacy and freedom of expression are the most
discussed human rights when it comes to the online world. The IETF
itself, defined as a 'open global community' of network designers,
operators, vendors, and researchers, is also protected by freedom of
assembly and association [RFC3233]. Discussions, comments and
consensus around RFCs are possible because of the collective
expression that freedom of association and assembly allow. The very
word "protocol" found its way into the language of computer
networking based on the need for collective agreement among network
users [HafnerandLyon].
The Internet is increasingly being used as a platform for protest.
Digital technologies play an important role "by helping individuals
and groups to organise and plan effectively and quickly, respond to
certain events, or document and report on protests "[ARTICLE19].
According to Hussain and Howard the Internet helped to "build
solidarity networks and identification of collective identities and
goals", facilitate protest, "extend the range of local coverage to
international broadcast networks" and as platform for contestation
for the future of "the future of civil society and information
infrastructure" [HussainHoward].
Protests are no longer limited to public physical spaces: squares,
streets or parks. Technology "makes it possible for people to
'gather' in online spaces and engage in new forms of 'virtual'
protest" [ARTICLE19]. Online association and assembly are crucial to
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mobilise groups and people where physical gatherings have been
impossible or dangerous [APC]. Throughout the world -from the Arab
Spring to Latin American student movements- the Internet has also
played a crucial role by providing a means for the fast dissemination
of information that was otherwise mediated by broadcast media, or
even forbidden by the government [Pensado].
We are aware that some of these examples go beyond the use of
Internet protocols and flow over into the applications layer or
examples in the offline world whereas the purpose of the following
document is to break down the relationship between Internet protocols
and the right to freedom of assembly and association. Nonetheless,
given that protocols are a part of the socio-technical ordering of
the world, we do recognize that in some cases the line between them
and applications, implementations, policies and offline realities are
often blurried and hard (if not impossible) to differentiate.
6. Cases and examples
The Internet has become a central mediator for collective action and
collaboration. This means the Internet has become a strong enabler
of the rights to freedom of association and assembly.
Here we will discuss different cases to bring out the characteristics
and consequences of different protocols, technologies and
architectural features. This issue is particularly timely since an
increasing trend of centralization and consolidation on the Internet
can be observed. This trend can be parallely observed on the
application level, among Content Distribution Networks, hosting
providers, as well as Internet access providers. Through the
discussion of specific case we will try to further understand how
this impact freedom of assembly, freedom of association as well as
the distributed nature of the Internet [RFC1287].
6.1. Communicating
The ability to produce, receive and spread information is an
essential pre-requisite for discussing and organizing. Protocols
that enable private, open, collaborative and non-excluding
communication models are the best fitted to foster and enable
assembly and association rights.
6.1.1. Mailing Lists
Since the beginning of the Internet mailing lists have been a key
site of assembly and association [RFC0155] [RFC1211]. In fact,
mailing lists were one of the Internet's first functionalities
[HafnerandLyon].
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In 1971, four years after the invention of email, the first mailing
list was created to talk about the idea of using Arpanet for
discussion. By this time, what had initially propelled the Arpanet
project forward as a resource sharing platform was gradually replaced
by the idea of a network as a means of bringing people together
[Abbate]. More than 45 years after, mailing lists are pervasive and
help communities to engage, have discussion, share information, ask
questions, and build ties. Even as social media and discussion
forums grew, mailing lists continue to be widely used
[AckermannKargerZhang]. They are a crucial tool to organise groups
and individuals around themes and causes [APC].
Mailinglist are still in wide use, also in the IETF because they
allow for easy association and allow people to subscribe (join) and
unsubscribe (leave) as they please. They also allow for association
of specific groups on closed lists. Finally the archival function
allows for accountabilty. The downsides of mailinglists are similar
to the ones generally associated with e-mail, except that end-to-end
encryption such as OpenPGP [RFC4880] and S/MIME [RFC5751] is not
possible because the final recipients are not known. There have been
expirimental solutions to address this issues such as Schleuder
[Schleuder], but this has not been standardized or widely deployed.
6.1.2. Multi-party video conferencing and risks
Multi-party video conferencing protocols such as WebRTC [RFC6176]
[RFC7118] allow for robust, bandwidth-adaptive, wideband and super-
wideband video and audio discussions in groups. 'The WebRTC protocol
was designed to enable responsive real-time communications over the
Internet, and is instrumental in allowing streaming video and
conferencing applications to run in the browser. In order to easily
facilitate direct connections between computers (bypassing the need
for a central server to act as a gatekeeper), WebRTC provides
functionality to automatically collect the local and public IP
addresses of Internet users (ICE or STUN). These functions do not
require consent from the user, and can be instantiated by sites that
a user visits without their awareness. The potential privacy
implications of this aspect of WebRTC are well documented, and
certain browsers have provided options to limit its behavior.'
[AndersonGuarnieri].
'The disclosure of network addresses presents a specific risk to
individuals that use privacy tools to conceal their real IP address
to sites that they visit. Typically, when a user browses the
Internet over a VPN, the only address that should be recorded by
sites they visit would be that of the VPN provider itself. Using the
WebRTC STUN function allows a site to additionally enumerate the
addresses that are associated with the computer that the visitor is
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using - rather than those of intermediaries. This means that if a
user is browsing the Internet on an ADSL connection over a VPN, a
malicious site they visit could potentially surreptitious record the
home address of the user.' [AndersonGuarnieri].
While facilitating freedom of assembly and association multi-party
video conferencing tools might pose concrete risks for those who use
them. One the one hand WebRTC is providing a resilient channels of
communications, but on the other hand it also exposes information
about those who are using the tool which might lead to increased
surveillance, identification and the consequences that might be
derived from that. This is especially concerning because the usage
of a VPN does not protect against the exposure of IP addresses
[Crawford].
The risk of surveillance is also true in an offline space, but this
is generally easy to analyze for the end-user. Security and privacy
expectations of the end-user could be made more clear to the user (or
improved) which would result in a more secure and/or private
excercise or the right to freedom of assembly or association.
6.2. Peer-to-peer networks and systems
At the organizational level, peer production is one of the most
relevant innovations from Internet mediated social practices.
According to [Benkler], it implies 'open collaborative innovation and
creation, performed by diverse, decentralized groups organized
principally by neither price signals nor organizational hierarchy,
harnessing heterogeneous motivations, and governed and managed based
on principles other than the residual authority of ownership
implemented through contract.' [Benkler].
In his book The Wealth of Networks, Benkler significantly expands on
his definition of commons-based peer production. According to
Benkler, what distinguishes commons-based production is that it
doesn't rely upon or propagate proprietary knowledge: "The inputs and
outputs of the process are shared, freely or conditionally, in an
institutional form that leaves them equally available for all to use
as they choose at their individual discretion." [Benkler] To ensure
that the knowledge generated is available for free use, commons-based
projects are often shared under an open license.
6.2.1. Peer-to-peer system achitectures
Peer-to-peer (P2P) is esentially a model of how people interact in
real life because "we deal directly with one another whenever we wish
to" [Vu]. Usually if we need something we ask our peers, who in turn
refer us to other peers. In this sense, the ideal definition of P2P
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is that "nodes are able to directly exchange resources and services
between themselves without the need for centralized servers" and
where each participating node typically acts both as a server and as
a client [Vu]. In RFC 5694 P2P has been defined as peers or nodes
that should be able to communicate directly between themselves
without passing intermediaries, and that the system should be self-
organizing and have decentralized control [RFC5694]. With this in
mind, the ultimate model of P2P is a completely decentralized system,
which is more resistant to speech regulation, immune to single points
of failure and have a higher performance and scalability.
Nonetheless, in practice some P2P systems are supported by
centralized servers and some others have hybrid models where nodes
are organized into two layers: the upper tier servers and the lower
tier common nodes [Vu].
Since the ARPANET project, the original idea behind the Internet was
conceived as what we would now call a peer-to-peer system [RFC0001].
Over time it has increasingly shifted towards a client/server model
with "millions of consumer clients communicating with a relatively
priviledged set of servers" [NelsonHedlun]. Whether for resource
sharing or data sharing, P2P systems are a form of enabling freedom
of assembly and association. Not only they allow for effective
dissemination of information, but they also because leverage
computing resources by diminishing costs allowing for the formation
of open collectives at the network level. At the same time, in
completely descentralized systems the nodes are autonomous and can
join or leave the network as they want also makes the system
unpredicable: a resource might be only sometimes available, and some
others it might be missing or incomplete [Vu]. Lack of information
might in turn make association or assembly more difficult.
Additionally, when one architecturally asseses the role of P2P
systems on can say that: "The main advantage of centralized P2P
systems is that they are able to provide a quick and reliable
resource locating. Their limitation, however, is that the
scalability of the systems is affected by the use of servers. While
decentralized P2P systems are better than centralized P2P systems in
this aspect, they require a longer time in resource locating. As a
result, hybrid P2P systems have been introduced to take ad- vantages
of both centralized and decentralized architectures. Basically, to
maintain the scalability, similar to decentralized P2P systems, there
are no servers in hybrid P2P systems. However, peer nodes that are
more powerful than others can be se- lected to act as servers to
serve others. These nodes are often called super peers. In this
way, resource locating can be done by both decentralized search
techniques and centralized search techniques (asking super peers),
and hence the systems benefit from the search techniques of
centralized P2P systems." [Vu]
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6.2.2. Version control
Ever since developers needed to collaboratively write, maintain and
discuss large code basis for the Internet there have been different
approaches of doing so. One approach is discussing code through
mailing lists, but this has proven to be hard in case of maintaining
the most recent versions. There are many different versions and
characteristics of version control systems.
A version control system is a piece of software that enables
developers on a software team to work together and also archive a
complete history of their work [Sink]. This allows teams to be
working simultaneously on updated. According to Sink, broadly
speaking, the history of version control tools can be dividied into
three generations. In the first one, concurrent development meant
that only one person could be working on a file at a time. The
second generation tools permit simultaneous modifications as long as
users merge the current revisions into their work before they are
allowed to commit. The hird generation tools allow merge and commit
to be separated [Sink].
Interestingly no version control system has ever been standardized in
the IETF whereas the version control systems like Subversion and Git
have are widely used within the community, as well as by working
groups. There has been a spirited discussion on whether working
groups should use centralized forms of the Git protocol, such as
those offered by Gitlab or Github. Proponents argue that this
simplifies the workflow and allows for a more transparent workflow.
Opponents argue that the relience on a centralized service which is
not merely using the Git protocol, but also used non-standardize
options like an Issue-Tracker, makes the process less transparent and
reliant on a third party.
The IETF has not made a decision on the use of centralized instances
of git, such as Github or Gitlab. There have been two efforts to
standardize the workflow vis a vis these third party services, but
these haven't come to fruition: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/
draft-nottingham-wugh-services-00.txt
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-thomson-github-bcp-00.txt
6.3. Reaching out
In meatspace, handing out pamphlets and reaching out to unknown
people is the most common way for growing a cause and seeking
collective support. The characteristics of the Internet
infrastructure and online space make reaching out more difficult.
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6.3.1. Spam, filter bubbles, and unrequested messaging
In the 1990s as the internet became more and more commercial, spam
came to be defined as irrelevant or unsolicited messages that were
porsted many times to multiple news groups or mailing lists [Marcus].
Here the question of consent is crucial. In the 2000s a large part
of the discussion revolved around the fact that certain corporations
-protected by the right to freedom of association- considered spam to
be a form of "comercial speech", thus encompassed by free expression
rights [Marcus]. Nonetheless, if we consider that the rights to
assembly and association also mean that "no one may be compelled to
belong to an association" [UDHR], spam infringes both rights if an
op-out mechanism is not provided and people are obliged to receive
unwanted information, or be reached by people they do not know.
This leaves us with an interesting case: spam is currently handled
mostly by mailproviders on behalf of the user, next to that countries
are increasingly adopting opt-in regimes for mailinglists and
commercial e-mail, with a possibility of serious fines in case of
violation.
While this protects the user from being confronted with unwanted
messages, it also makes it legally and technically very difficult to
communicate a message to someone who did not explicitly ask for this.
In public offline spaces we regularly get exposed to flyers,
invitations or demonstrations where our opinions get challenged, or
we are invited to consider different viewpoints. There is no
equivalent on the Internet with the technical and legal regime that
currently operates in it. In other words, it is nearly impossible to
provide information, in a proportionate manner, that someone is not
explicility expecting or asking for. This reinforces a concept that
is regularly discussed on the application level, called 'filter
bubble': "The proponents of personalization offer a vision of a
custom-tailored world, every facet of which fits us perfectly. It's
a cozy place, populated by our favorite people and things and ideas."
[Pariser]. "The filter bubble's costs are both personal and
cultural. There are direct consequences for those of us who use
personalized filters. And then there are societal consequences,
which emerge when masses of people begin to live a filter bubbled-
life (...). Left to their own devices, personalization filters serve
up a kind of invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own
ideas, amplifying our desire for things that are familiar and leaving
us oblivious to the dangers lurking in the dark territory of the
uknown." [Pariser].
It seems that the 'filter bubble'-effect can also be observed at the
infrastructure level, which actually strenghtens the impact and thus
hampers the effect of collective expression. This could be
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interpretated as an argument for the injection of unrequested
messages, spam or other unrequested notifications. But the big
difference between the proliferation of such messages offline and
online is the investment that is needed. It is not hard for a single
person to message a lot of people, whereas if that person needed to
go house by house the scale and impact of their actions would be much
smaller. Inversely if it were a common practice to expose people to
unwanted messages online, users would be drowned in such messages,
and no expression would be possible anymore. Allowing illimited
sending of unsolicited messages would be a blow against freedom of
speech: when everyone talks, nobody listens.
Here the argument is very similar to DDoS attacks: whereas one could
argue for legitimate uses in limited specific cases, these would be
drowned out by a malicious use which constitutes an attack on the
internet infrastructure and thus the assembly or association itself.
6.3.2. Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
One of the most common examples of an association at the
infrastructure level are the Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
(DDoS) in which the infrastructure of the Internet is used to express
discontent with a specific cause [Abibil] [GreenMovement].
Unfortunately DDoS are often used to stifle freedom of expression as
they complicate the ability of independent media and human rights
organizations to exercise their right to (online) freedom of
association, while facilitating the ability of governments to censor
dissent. This is one of the reasons protocols should seek to
mitigate DDoS attacks [BCP72].
As described in draft-irtf-hrpc-research: "Uses of DDoS might or
might not be legitimate for political reasons, but the IETF has no
means or methods to assess this, and in general enabling DDoS would
mean a deterioration of the network and thus freedom of expression".
This is argued from the vector of freedom of expression, but if we
would analyze it from the perspective of freedom of association the
argument could be as follows: If the Internet is an association, any
attack should be prevented and mitigated because it prevents the
possibility of exercising a right to collective expression, which is
consistent with [BCP72]. More will be said on this topic in the last
section of the present text.
On the other hand, it must be taken into consideration that DDoS
attacks are a form of forced assembly when done without the agreement
-or even knowledge- of the involved parts. This point was also
described in draft-irtf-hrpc-research: "When it comes to comparing
DDoS attacks to protests in offline life, it is important to remember
that only a limited number of DDoS attacks involved solely willing
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participants. In most cases, the clients are hacked computers of
unrelated parties that have not consented to being part of a DDoS
(for exceptions see Operation Abibil [Abibil] or the Iranian Green
Movement DDoS [GreenMovement]).
6.4. Grouping together (identities)
Collective identities are also protected by freedom of association
and assembly. Acording to Melucci these are 'shared definitions
produced by several interacting individuals who are concerned with
the orientation of their action as well as the field of opportunities
and constraints in which their action takes place.' [Melucci] In
this sense, assemblies and associations are an important base in the
maintenance and development of culture, as well as preservation of
minority identities [OSCE].
6.4.1. DNS
Domain names allow hosts to be identified by human parsable
information. Whereas an IP address might not be the expression of an
identity, a domain name can be, and often is. On the other hand the
grouping of a certain identity under a specific domain or even a Top
Level Domain brings about risks because connecting an identity to a
hierarchically structured identifier systems creates a central attack
surface. Some of these risks are the surveillance of the services
running on the domain, domain based censorship [RFC7754], or
impersonation of the domain through DNS cache poisoning. Several
technologies have been developed in the IETF to mitigated these risks
such as DNS over TLS [RFC7858], DNSSEC [RFC4033], and TLS [RFC5246].
These mitigations would, when implemented, not make censorship
impossible, but rather make it visible. The use of a centralized
authority always makes censorship through a registry or registrar
possible, as well as by using a fake resolver or using proposed
standards such as DNS Response Policy Zones [RPZ].
The structuring of DNS as a hierarchical authority structure also
brings about specific characteristic, namely the possibility of
centralized policy making on the management and operation of domain
names, which is what (in part) happens at ICANN. The impact of ICANN
processes on human rights will not be discussed here.
6.4.2. ASes
In order for edge-users to connect to the Internet, a user needs to
be connected to an Automous System (AS) which, in turn, has peering
or transit relations with other AS'es. This means that in the
process of accessing the Internet the edge-user needs to accept the
policies and practices of the intermediary that provides them access
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to the other networks. In other words, for users to be able to join
the 'network of networks', they always need to connect through an
intermediary.
While accessing the Internet through an intermediary, the user is
forced to accept the policies, practices and principles of a network.
This could impede the rights of the edge-user, depending on the
implemented policies and practices on the network and how (if at all)
they are communicated to them. For example: filtering, blocking,
extensive logging or other invasive practices that are not clearly
communicated to the user.
In some cases it also means that there is no other way for the edge-
user to connect to the network of networks, and is thus forced into
accepting the policies of a specific network, because it is not
trivial for an edge-user to operate an AS and engage in peering
relation with other ASes. This design, combined with the increased
importance of the Internet to make use of basic services, forces
edge-user to engage in association with a specific network eventhough
the user does not consent with the policies of the network.
7. Discussion: The Internet as an association
It is undeniable that communities, collaboration and joint action lie
at the heart of the Internet. Even at at linguistical level, the
words "networks" and "associations" are close synonyms. Both
interconnected groups and assemblies of people depend on "links" and
"relationships" [Swire]. Taking this definition and the previous
analysis into consideration, we argue that the Internet constitutes a
an assembly and an association. What are the implications of this?
Does it mean that every network is an assembly and has absolute
freedom to implement its own rules? Or does the importance of a
functioning 'larger' assembly (the Internet) has prevails over the
preferences of the smaller ones (individual AS'es)? The demands that
have been set for ASes is very limited and are based on routing
principles: an AS must be used for exchanging external routing
information with other ASes through BGP, should therefore use BGP and
IP and have a routing policy [RFC1930]. So in order to be able to
connect to the Internet as an AS, which means to engage in peering or
transit relations, there are basic rules one needs to adhere to. But
theses rules do not say anything on how the AS will or should treat
traffic on its network. In this regard, we must take into
consideration that even things that are private, need to live up to
standards because they have public consequences. If we take the
example of ASes, we could say they are private infrastructure
(therefore souvereign with the ability to set their own policies),
but jointly they form a type of public infrastructure, from the
moment the receive an Autonomous Systems Number.
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The Internet is made of up interconnected ASes (one would argue that
this doesn't include IXPs, but most modern IXPs will have an ASN for
their route server (and possibly a separate ASN for their management
infrastructure), which jointly form an assembly and an association.
This assembly and association should be protected. This means that
rights and obligations that sterm from this organizational form,
should also be protected and respected.
8. Conclusions
The Internet has an impact on the ability for people to excercise
their right to freedom of association and assembly. The Internet,
since its inception has enabled people to jointly communicate,
collaborate and collaborate. The same could also be argued with
relation to freedom of expression, some have argued that the text in
article 19 of the [UDHR] reads like a description of the Internet:
[the] freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek,
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers. [UDHR]
The difference between freedom of expression and freedom of
association and assembly is that the Internet itself takes the form
on an association and assembly; it reproduces its features of
collaboration. Recognizing this is a crucial step in determining
architectural features of the Internet and its usage.
9. Security Considerations
As this draft concerns a research document, there are no security
considerations.
10. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
11. Research Group Information
The discussion list for the IRTF Human Rights Protocol Considerations
Research Group is located at the e-mail address hrpc@ietf.org [1].
Information on the group and information on how to subscribe to the
list is at https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc
Archives of the list can be found at: https://www.irtf.org/mail-
archive/web/hrpc/current/index.html
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12. References
12.1. Informative References
[Abbate] Janet Abbate, ., "Inventing the Internet", Cambridge: MIT
Press (2013): 11. , 2013, <https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/
inventing-internet>.
[Abibil] Danchev, D., "Dissecting 'Operation Ababil' - an OSINT
Analysis", 2012, <http://ddanchev.blogspot.be/2012/09/
dissecting-operation-ababil-osint.html>.
[AckermannKargerZhang]
Ackerman, M., Karger, D., and A. Zhang, "Mailing Lists:
Why Are They Still Here, What's Wrong With Them, and How
Can We Fix Them?", Mit. edu (2017): 1. , 2017,
<https://people.csail.mit.edu/axz/papers/
mailinglists.pdf>.
[AndersonGuarnieri]
Anderson, C. and C. Guarnieri, "Fictitious Profiles and
WebRTC's Privacy Leaks Used to Identify Iranian
Activists", 2016,
<https://iranthreats.github.io/resources/webrtc-
deanonymization/>.
[APC] Association for Progressive Communications and . Gayathry
Venkiteswaran, "Freedom of assembly and association online
in India, Malaysia and Pakistan. Trends, challenges and
recommendations.", 2016,
<https://www.apc.org/es/system/files/
FOAA_online_IndiaMalaysiaPakistan.pdf>.
[ARTICLE19]
ARTICLE 19, "The Right to Protest Principles: Background
Paper", 2016,
<https://www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/38581/
Protest-Background-paper-Final-April-2016.pdf page 7>.
[BCP72] IETF, "Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security
Considerations", 2003, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
bcp72/>.
[Benkler] Benkler, Y., "Peer Production and Cooperation", 2009,
<http://www.benkler.org/
Peer%20production%20and%20cooperation%2009.pdf>.
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[Crawford]
Crawford, D., "The WebRTC VPN "Bug" and How to Fix", 2015,
<https://www.bestvpn.com/the-webrtc-vpn-bug-and-how-to-
fix-it/>.
[GreenMovement]
Villeneuve, N., "Iran DDoS", 2009,
<https://www.nartv.org/2009/06/16/iran-ddos/>.
[HafnerandLyon]
Hafnerand, K. and M. Lyon, "Where Wizards Stay Up Late.
The Origins of the Internet", First Touchstone Edition
(1998): 93. , 1998, <https://doi.org/10.1111/misr.12020>.
[HussainHoward]
Hussain, M. and P. Howard, "What Best Explains Successful
Protest Cascades? ICTs and the Fuzzy Causes of the Arab
Spring", Int Stud Rev (2013) 15 (1): 48-66. , 2013,
<https://doi.org/10.1111/misr.12020>.
[ICCPR] United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights", 1966,
<http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/
CCPR.aspx>.
[Marcus] Marcus, J., "Commercial Speech on the Internet: Spam and
the first amendment", 1998, <http://www.cardozoaelj.com/
wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Marcus.pdf>.
[Melucci] Melucci, A., "The Process of Collective Identity", Temple
University Press, Philadelphia , 1995.
[NelsonHedlun]
Minar, N. and M. Hedlun, "A Network of Peers: Models
Through the History of the Internet", Peer to Peer:
Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies, ed: Andy
Oram , 2001, <http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/REconomy
_Resource_Pack/More_Inspirational_Videos_and_Useful_Info/
Peer_to_Peer-
Harnessing_the_Power_of_Disruptive_Technologies.pdf>.
[OSCE] OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights,
"Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly", page 24 ,
2010, <https://www.osce.org/odihr/73405?download=true>.
[Pariser] Pariser, E., "The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized
Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think", Peguin
Books, London. , 2012.
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[Pensado] Jaime Pensado, ., "Student Activism. Utopian Dreams.",
ReVista. Harvard Review of Latin America (2012). , 2012,
<http://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/student-activism>.
[RFC0001] Crocker, S., "Host Software", RFC 1, DOI 10.17487/RFC0001,
April 1969, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1>.
[RFC0155] North, J., "ARPA Network mailing lists", RFC 155,
DOI 10.17487/RFC0155, May 1971, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc155>.
[RFC1211] Westine, A. and J. Postel, "Problems with the maintenance
of large mailing lists", RFC 1211, DOI 10.17487/RFC1211,
March 1991, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1211>.
[RFC1287] Clark, D., Chapin, L., Cerf, V., Braden, R., and R. Hobby,
"Towards the Future Internet Architecture", RFC 1287,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1287, December 1991, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc1287>.
[RFC1930] Hawkinson, J. and T. Bates, "Guidelines for creation,
selection, and registration of an Autonomous System (AS)",
BCP 6, RFC 1930, DOI 10.17487/RFC1930, March 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1930>.
[RFC1958] Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1958>.
[RFC3233] Hoffman, P. and S. Bradner, "Defining the IETF", BCP 58,
RFC 3233, DOI 10.17487/RFC3233, February 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3233>.
[RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements",
RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4033>.
[RFC4084] Klensin, J., "Terminology for Describing Internet
Connectivity", BCP 104, RFC 4084, DOI 10.17487/RFC4084,
May 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4084>.
[RFC4880] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., Shaw, D., and R.
Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 4880,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4880, November 2007, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc4880>.
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[RFC4949] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2",
FYI 36, RFC 4949, DOI 10.17487/RFC4949, August 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4949>.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc5246>.
[RFC5694] Camarillo, G., Ed. and IAB, "Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
Architecture: Definition, Taxonomies, Examples, and
Applicability", RFC 5694, DOI 10.17487/RFC5694, November
2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5694>.
[RFC5751] Ramsdell, B. and S. Turner, "Secure/Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions (S/MIME) Version 3.2 Message
Specification", RFC 5751, DOI 10.17487/RFC5751, January
2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5751>.
[RFC6176] Turner, S. and T. Polk, "Prohibiting Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL) Version 2.0", RFC 6176, DOI 10.17487/RFC6176, March
2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6176>.
[RFC6973] Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc6973>.
[RFC7118] Baz Castillo, I., Millan Villegas, J., and V. Pascual,
"The WebSocket Protocol as a Transport for the Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP)", RFC 7118,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7118, January 2014, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7118>.
[RFC7754] Barnes, R., Cooper, A., Kolkman, O., Thaler, D., and E.
Nordmark, "Technical Considerations for Internet Service
Blocking and Filtering", RFC 7754, DOI 10.17487/RFC7754,
March 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7754>.
[RFC7858] Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7858>.
[RPZ] Vixie, P. and V. Schyver, "DNS Response Policy Zones
(RPZ)", 2017, <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-
dnsop-dns-rpz-00>.
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[Schleuder]
Nadir, "Schleuder - A gpg-enabled mailinglist with
remailing-capabilities.", 2017,
<https://schleuder.nadir.org/>.
[Sink] Sink, E., "Version Control by Example", 2011,
<http://ericsink.com/vcbe/>.
[Star] Star, S., "The Ethnography of Infrastructure", American
Behavioral Scientist, Volume 43 (3), 377-391. , 1999,
<http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/
abs/10.1177/00027649921955326>.
[Swire] Peter Swire, ., "Social Networks, Privacy, and Freedom of
Association: Data Empowerment vs. Data Protection", North
Carolina Law Review (2012) 90 (1): 104. , 2012,
<https://ssrn.com/abstract=1989516 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1989516>.
[Tocqueville]
de Tocqueville, A., "Democracy in America", n.d., <http://
classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/De_tocqueville_alexis/
democracy_in_america_historical_critical_ed/
democracy_in_america_vol_2.pdf p. 304>.
[UDHR] United Nations General Assembly, "The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights", 1948,
<http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/>.
[UNGA] Hina Jilani, ., "Human rights defenders", A/59/401 , 2004,
<http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/
view_doc.asp?symbol=A/59/401 para. 46>.
[UNHRC] Maina Kiai, ., "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the
rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of
association", A/HRC/20/27 , 2012,
<http://freeassembly.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/
A-HRC-20-27_en-annual-report-May-2012.pdf>.
[Vu] Vu, Quang Hieu, ., Lupu, Mihai, ., and . Ooi, Beng Chin,
"Peer-to-Peer Computing: Principles and Applications",
2010, <https://www.springer.com/cn/book/9783642035135>.
12.2. URIs
[1] mailto:hrpc@ietf.org
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Authors' Addresses
Niels ten Oever
ARTICLE 19
EMail: niels@article19.org
Gisela Perez de Acha
Derechos Digitales
EMail: gisela@derechosdigitales.org
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