U.N. agency to draft possible limits on Internet anonymity

By: Rebekah Heacock on 16 September 2008
Posted in United States of America, United States/Canada, Anonymity

A document obtained by CNet News has revealed that the U.N National Security Agency is part of a group drafting a set of technical standards determining how to trace Internet communications back to their original sender, potentially limiting users' ability to remain anonymous, according to a report published Friday.

The group, named Q6/17, is headed by the U.N. International Telecommunications Agency (ITU) and is reportedly acting on a proposal submitted by the Chinese government. The group is meeting in Geneva this week to work on the proposal, and meetings are closed to the public.

The proposal is intended in part to fight distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, but experts claim most experienced hackers would still be able to avoid detection.

The report has raised concerns among digital freedom advocates, who claim the standards would violate human rights and who cite the potential for abuse by governments who may use tracebacks to identify and "quash" political opponents.

Steve Bellovin, a Columbia University computer scientist and IETF member who drafted a different tracebook proposal in 2000, criticized the Q6/17 approach in a recent blog post, saying, "Network design should have as a primary goal the efficient operation of a network. Naturally, security is an important design consideration; the question, though, is what security really means. There are lots of possible definitions; to me, though, none of them include political censorship."

Online anonymity is a legal right in the United States and is recognized by international organizations including the Council of Europe and the ITU itself. Though the U.N. lacks the authority to enforce global Internet standards, the Q6/17 group plans to work with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the United States Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center. This collaboration could lead to acceptance of the standards by national governments.

The proposal is scheduled to be finished next year.