On Jan 1, 2013, at 10:36 AM, Alessandro Vesely <vesely(_at_)tana(_dot_)it>
wrote:
Was D.1 to ease wire tapping? By example, I, as a mail server operator
who is not a telecom, am not required by my country's laws to provide an
instrumentation whereby authorized investigators can obtain a list of a
user's correspondents on the fly. Yet that kind of data is said to be
essential for police operations. OTOH, SMTP doesn't consider that kind
of facilities, and fashionable implementations don't provide them. What
am I missing?
In most countries, wiretap laws apply to public facilities. An enterprise mail
server isn't a public facility.
Perhaps, as the old telephone system is fading away, the institutions
that founded it --local governments' branches-- should change their
mindset or just fade away as well... Should the IETF or other SDOs help
such transition?
If you want something to fade away, making a fuss about it isn't a useful
approach. The IETF's practice in the past has been to improve the Internet; I
tend to think that's as it should be.
That said, I'm also of the opinion that preventing a police force from
conducting a proper criminal investigation is not a path to success. We like to
say that the Internet routes around brokenness; so do police forces and
legislative bodies. They define "brokenness" as anything that prevents them
from doing their job, the same way we do. What I would far rather see is a set
of technical mechanisms and supporting law that facilitate legitimate criminal
investigations and expose the other kind.