Não é brincadeira, é mesmo um
novo RFC do IETF:
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Farrell
Request for Comments: 7258 Trinity College Dublin
BCP: 188 H. Tschofenig
Category: Best Current Practice ARM Ltd.
ISSN: 2070-1721 May 2014
Pervasive Monitoring Is an Attack
Abstract
Pervasive monitoring is a technical attack that should be mitigated
in the design of IETF protocols, where possible.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
(...)
1. Pervasive Monitoring Is a Widespread Attack on Privacy
Pervasive Monitoring (PM) is widespread (and often covert)
surveillance through intrusive gathering of protocol artefacts,
including application content, or protocol metadata such as headers.
Active or passive wiretaps and traffic analysis, (e.g., correlation,
timing or measuring packet sizes), or subverting the cryptographic
keys used to secure protocols can also be used as part of pervasive
monitoring. PM is distinguished by being indiscriminate and very
large scale, rather than by introducing new types of technical
compromise.
The IETF community's technical assessment is that PM is an attack on
the privacy of Internet users and organisations. The IETF community
has expressed strong agreement that PM is an attack that needs to be
mitigated where possible, via the design of protocols that make PM
significantly more expensive or infeasible. Pervasive monitoring was
discussed at the technical plenary of the November 2013 IETF meeting
[IETF88Plenary] and then through extensive exchanges on IETF mailing
lists. This document records the IETF community's consensus and
establishes the technical nature of PM.
The term "attack" is used here in a technical sense that differs
somewhat from common English usage. In common English usage, an
attack is an aggressive action perpetrated by an opponent, intended
to enforce the opponent's will on the attacked party. The term is
used here to refer to behavior that subverts the intent of
communicating parties without the agreement of those parties. An
attack may change the content of the communication, record the
content or external characteristics of the communication, or through
correlation with other communication events, reveal information the
parties did not intend to be revealed. It may also have other
effects that similarly subvert the intent of a communicator.
[RFC4949] contains a more complete definition for the term "attack".
We also use the term in the singular here, even though PM in reality
may consist of a multifaceted set of coordinated attacks.
In particular, the term "attack", used technically, implies nothing
about the motivation of the actor mounting the attack. The
motivation for PM can range from non-targeted nation-state
surveillance, to legal but privacy-unfriendly purposes by commercial
enterprises, to illegal actions by criminals. The same techniques to
achieve PM can be used regardless of motivation. Thus, we cannot
defend against the most nefarious actors while allowing monitoring by
other actors no matter how benevolent some might consider them to be,
since the actions required of the attacker are indistinguishable from
other attacks. The motivation for PM is, therefore, not relevant for
how PM is mitigated in IETF protocols.
(...)