W3C/IAB workshop on Strengthening the Internet
Against Pervasive Monitoring (STRINT)
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Logistics/Dates:
Submissions due: Jan 15 2014
Invitations issued: Jan 31 2014
Workshop Date: Feb 28 (pm) & Mar 1 (am) 2014
To be Confirmed - could be all day Mar 1
Location: Central London, UK. IETF Hotel or nearby (TBC)
For queries, contact: stephen(_dot_)farrell(_at_)cs(_dot_)tcd(_dot_)ie,
tech(_at_)strews(_dot_)eu
Send submissions to: group-strint-submission(_at_)w3(_dot_)org
Workshop web site: http://www.w3.org/2014/strint/
The Vancouver IETF plenary concluded that pervasive monitoring
represents an attack on the Internet, and the IETF has begun to
carry out various of the more obvious actions [1] required to
try to handle this attack. However, there are additional much
more complex questions arising that need further consideration
before any additional concrete plans can be made.
The W3C and IAB will therefore host a one-day workshop on the
topic of "Strengthening the Internet Against Pervasive
Monitoring" before IETF-89 in London in March 2014, with support
from the EU FP7 STREWS [2] project.
Pervasive monitoring targets protocol data that we also need for
network manageability and security. This data is captured and
correlated with other data. There is an open problem as to how
to enhance protocols so as to maintain network manageability and
security but still limit data capture and correlation.
The overall goal of the workshop is to steer IETF and W3C work
so as to be able to improve or "strengthen" the Internet in the
face of pervasive monitoring. A workshop report in the form of
an IAB RFC will be produced after the event.
Technical questions for the workshop include:
- What are the pervasive monitoring threat models, and what is
their effect on web and Internet protocol security and privacy?
- What is needed so that web developers can better consider the
pervasive monitoring context?
- How are WebRTC and IoT impacted, and how can they be better
protected? Are other key Internet and web technologies
potentially impacted?
- What gaps exist in current tool sets and operational best
practices that could address some of these potential impacts?
- What trade-offs exist between strengthening measures, (e.g.
more encryption) and performance, operational or network
management issues?
- How do we guard against pervasive monitoring while maintaining
network manageability?
- Can lower layer changes (e.g., to IPv6, LISP, MPLS) or
additions to overlay networks help?
- How realistic is it to not be fingerprintable on the web and
Internet?
- How can W3C, the IETF and the IRTF better deal with new
cryptographic algorithm proposals in future?
- What are the practical benefits and limits of "opportunistic
encryption"?
- Can we deploy end-to-end crypto for email, SIP, the web, all
TCP applications or other applications so that we mitigate
pervasive monitoring usefully?
- How might pervasive monitoring take form or be addressed in
embedded systems or different industrial verticals?
- How do we reconcile caching, proxies and other intermediaries
with end-to-end encryption?
- Can we obfuscate metadata with less overhead than TOR?
- Considering meta-data: are there relevant differences between
protocol artefacts, message sizes and patterns and payloads?
Position papers (maximum of 5 pages using 10pt font or any
length Internet-Drafts) from academia, industry and others that
focus on the broader picture and that warrant the kind of
extended discussion that a full day workshop offers are the most
welcome. Papers that reflect experience based on running code
and deployed services are also very welcome. Papers that are
proposals for point-solutions are less useful in this context,
and can simply be submitted as Internet-Drafts and discussed on
relevant IETF or W3C lists, e.g. the IETF perpass list. [3]
The workshop will be by invitation only. Those wishing to attend
should submit a position paper or Internet-Draft. All inputs
submitted and considered relevant will be published on the
workshop web page. The organisers (STREWS project participants,
IAB and W3C staff) will decide whom to invite based on the
submissions received. Sessions will be organized according to
content, and not every accepted submission or invited attendee
will have an opportunity to present as the intent is to foster
discussion and not simply to have a sequence of presentations.
[1] http://down.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/misc/perpass.txt
[2] http://www.strews.eu/
[3] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/perpass