And more on DNS security http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/experts-accuse.html Experts Accuse Bush Administration of Foot-Dragging on DNS Security Hole By Ryan Singel Email <mailto:ryan@ryansingel.net>August 13, 2008 | 3:44:24 PMCategories: Hacks and Cracks <http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/hacks_and_cracks/index.html>, Threats <http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/threats/index.html> Roots Despite a recent high-profile vulnerability that showed the net could be hacked in minutes, the domain name system -- a key internet infrastructure -- continues to suffer from a serious security weakness, thanks to bureaucratic inertia at the U.S. government agency in charge, security experts say. If the complicated politics of internet governance continue to get in the way of upgrading the security of the net's core technology, the internet could turn into a carnival house of mirrors, where no URL or e-mail address could be trusted to be genuine, according to Bill Woodcock, research director at the nonprofit Packet Clearing House <http://www.pch.net/home/index.php>. "The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, an agency of the Department of Commerce, is the show-stopper here," Woodcock said. At issue is the trustworthiness of the domain name system, or DNS, which serves as the internet's phone book <http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/06/dayintech_0623>, translating queries such as wikipedia.org into the numeric IP address where the site's server lives. Just weeks ago, security researcher Dan Kaminsky announced he'd discovered a way for hackers to feed fake info into DNS listings, which would allow hackers to redirect web traffic at will -- for example, routing every person attempting to log in to the Bank of America to a fake site controlled by the attacker. Kaminsky quietly worked with large tech companies to build patches for the net's name servers to make the attack more difficult. But security experts, and even the NTIA, say those patches are just temporary fixes; the only known complete fix is DNSSEC <http://www.dnssec-deployment.org/> -- a set of security extensions <http://www.dnssec-tools.org/> for name servers. Those extensions cryptographically sign DNS records, ensuring their authenticity like a wax seal on an letter. The push for DNSSEC has been ramping up over the last few years, with four regions -- including Sweden (.SE) and Puerto Rico (.PR) -- already securing their own domains with DNSSEC. Four of the largest top-level domains -- .org, .gov, .uk and .mil, are not far behind. But because DNS servers work in a giant hierarchy, deploying DNSSEC successfully also requires having someone trustworthy sign the so-called "root file" with a public-private key. Otherwise, an attacker can undermine the entire system at the root level, like cutting down a tree at the trunk. That's where the politics comes in. The DNS root is controlled by the Commerce Department's NTIA, which thus far has refused to implement DNSSEC. The NTIA brokers the contracts that divide the governance and top-level operations of the internet between the nonprofit ICANN and the for-profit VeriSign, which also runs the .com domain. "They're the only department of the government that isn't on board with securing the Domain Name System, and unfortunately, they're also the ones who Commerce deputized to oversee ICANN," Woodcock said. "The biggest difference is that once the root is signed and the public key is out, it will be put in every operating system and will be on all CDs from Apple, Microsoft, SUSE, Freebsd, etc," says Russ Mundy, principal networking scientist at Sparta, Inc, which has been developing open-source DNSSEC tools for years with government funding, He says the top-level key is "the only one you have to have, to go down the tree." A European networking group known as RIPE called in June 2007 for the root to be signed, with Swedish and British representatives echoing the call in October. But NTIA is not moving quickly enough to sign the root, given the looming threat, even after the final technical problems have been resolved, according to Woodcock and others. "A few years ago, there were still technical hurdles to actually signing and using DNSSEC, but in the past few years, a lot of software tools, both commercial and open-source, have come out, and now it's a completely solved problem," Woodcock said. "All that's left is the far less tractable, purely political problem." "Arguing over who gets to hold the cryptographic keys in the long run [should] wait until we're not facing a critical threat," Woodcock said. But the NTIA insists it is moving at just the right pace. "We are committed to taking no action that would have the potential to adversely affect the operational stability of the DNS," says spokesman Bart Forbes. "While there is increasing pressure to secure the DNS, NTIA must work with all stakeholders and consider all possible solutions." Olaf Kolkman, a Dutch networking export, says there's no time to waste. The only way for DNSSEC to work is for the top-level zone file -- which lists the specifics for top-level domains like .gov -- to be signed by a trusted authority. "Currently DNSSEC is the only mechanism known to protect against the Kaminsky attack," Kolkman said. "It is not clear that other solutions will provide the same level of protection as DNSSEC." Without such extensions, a hacker eager for trade secrets could hijack the DNS listing for Apple's e-mail server and insert the number for a server he controls instead. He could then keep a copy of every message sent to the company and forward them all. No one would likely to be any wiser until a human looked closely at the mail headers. Still, even DNSSEC's most fervent backers admit that signing the root won't instantly secure the net. Installing the extensions internet-wide will be costly and time-intensive, but proponents say that getting the root signed will turbocharge the process. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority -- which coordinates the internet -- has been prototyping a system to sign the root-zone file for the last year, but they can't do the same for the internet's top servers without approval from the Department of Commerce. That's where the rub is, according to Kolkman. "Then the issue becomes political because there seems to be the perception that the introduction of a key guardian changes the current policies," Kolkman said That could also simplify how top-level zone files are created, according to Richard Lamb, a technical expert at IANA. Currently companies that manage top-level domains like .com submit changes to ICANN, which then sends them to NTIA for approval, before they're forwarded to VeriSign. VeriSign actually edits the root file and publishes it to the 13 root servers around the world. "We would want to bring the editing, creation and signing of the root zone file here," to IANA, Lamb said, noting that VeriSign would likely still control distribution of the file to the root servers, and there would be a public consultation process that the change was right for the net. But changing that system could be perceived as reducing U.S. control over the net -- a touchy geopolitical issue. ICANN is often considered by Washington politicians to be akin to the United Nations, and its push to control the root-zone file could push the U.S. to give more control to VeriSign, experts say. VeriSign did not respond to a request for comment, but its CTO said earlier this year that it was creating its own root-zone file-signing test bed. The root-zone file, which contains entries for the 300 or so top-level domains such as .gov and .com, changes almost every day, but the number of changes to the file will likely increase radically in the near future, since ICANN decided in June to allow an explosion of new top-level domain names. Woodcock isn't buying the assurances of NTIA that it is simply moving deliberatively. "If the root isn't signed, then no amount of work that responsible individuals and companies do to protect their domains will be effective," Woodcock said. "You have to follow the chain of signatures down from the root to the top-level domain to the user's domain. If all three pieces aren't there, the user isn't protected." Brian Munyao Longwe wrote:
So does Cyber War bring out any legal issues? This is a slightly chilling summary of the current crisis in Georgia and the central role that the internet had before the hostilities escalated.
*Longtime Battle Lines Are Recast In Russia and Georgia's Cyberwar*
By Kim Hart Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 14, 2008; D01
As the violence unfolded between Russia and Georgia during the past week, hackers waged war on another front: the Internet.
The Georgian government accused Russia of engaging in cyberwarfare by disabling many government Web sites, making it difficult to inform citizens quickly of important updates. Russia said that it was not involved and that its own media and official Web sites had suffered similar attacks. Although a cease-fire has been ordered, major Georgian servers are still down, hindering communication in the country.
Some Georgian officials, bloggers and citizens were able to work around the disruptions, sending text messages to friends in other countries using Web sites hosted by servers in the United States, Poland and Estonia that are less likely to fall victim to a cyberattack.
Concerted online attacks have been a threat for years. But security experts say the "cyberwar" between Russia and Georgia underscores the havoc that can spread on a digital battlefield. It also highlights how vulnerable Web-reliant countries are to assaults that could cripple military communications or a national banking industry.
The attacks against Georgia's Internet infrastructure began nearly two months before the first shots were fired, according to security researchers who track Internet traffic into and out of the countries. Such attacks, known as "denial of service" attacks, are triggered when computers in a network are simultaneously ordered to bombard a site with millions of requests, which overloads a server and causes it to shut down.
"In terms of the scope and international dimension of this attack, it's a landmark," said Ronald J. Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which has nearly 100 researchers mapping Web traffic through several countries, including Russia and Georgia. He said small-scale attacks have occurred between the countries since June. "International laws are very poorly developed, so it really crosses a line into murky territory . . . Is an information blockade an act of war?"
Cyberattacks can be launched cheaply and easily, with a few hundred computers and a couple of skilled hackers. Simpler tactics are even easier to mount by hacking into a server and deleting files, reconfiguring settings and altering photos. Compared with expensive military attacks, cyberwar tactics "seems like the kind of thing that a sophisticated military would want to experiment with," said Ben Edelman, assistant professor at Harvard Business School who has studied cyberattacks.
"Imagine how devastating it would be to a military commander to lose access to a server that tells him where his troops are stationed and where he has resources," he said, adding that "this is the first time we've had such strong evidence of cyberwarfare."
Instructions on how to mount such attacks are readily available on blogs, making it easy for a grass-roots effort to quickly escalate into a crippling assault, said Evgeny Morozov, a technology consultant based in Berlin who has tracked blogs in Georgia and Russia.
Figuring out who is behind the attacks has been difficult, Deibert said, because of complex routing methods and a multitude of connection exchanges. The Internet's infrastructure is a maze of lines laid by different service providers traversing many countries, masking how information is traveling -- or blocked.
"It's an ongoing battle in documenting where it's coming from and helping people get around it," he said.
In Georgia, which is not as dependent on the Internet as other nations, the cyberattack mainly hindered the government's ability to communicate with its citizens and others during the fighting. The Georgian Foreign Ministry's Web site, for example, was disabled except for a collage that compared Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to Adolf Hitler.
"Battles today are as much about ideas and images as they are territories," Deibert said. "If you're a military and intelligence agency, you're going to take down information that is in opposition and control the message."
To get around the blockade, Georgian officials relocated national Web sites to addresses hosted by Google's Blogspot, whose U.S. servers are more immune to attack. Citizens used blogging platforms such as LiveJournal -- the dominant platform in Russia and Georgia -- to post their own reactions during the fighting.
For example, a Georgian refugee from Abkhazia who blogs under the name Cyxymu on LiveJournal posted photos of Russian troops entering the Georgian town of Gori. The blogger said the photos were taken after Russia had announced its withdrawal, proving, he said, that fighting continued.
Morozov said only a few hundred Georgians used blogs to communicate with people outside the country. Even that tool was threatened, he said, when a group of Russian bloggers sent a letter asking Sup, the Russian company that owns and manages LiveJournal, to censor posts with pro-Georgian sentiment. Sup did not comply.
Givi Bitsadze, in Tbilisi, used microblogging site Twitter to share updates about the fighting in English and Russian.
"Tbilisi is still safe, but other cities are under attack, bombs kinda stopped, but Russian soldiers are breaking in a houses," one post read yesterday. He also noted an Olympic victory: "Georgia beats Russia in beach volleyball."
The cyberwar will most likely serve as a Web security wake-up call, Morozov said.
"Georgia was completely unprepared to the fact that all this information was on the Internet," he said. "I think it taught them -- and a lot of people -- a lesson."
On Aug 18, 2008, at 9:00 AM, John Walubengo wrote:
Hi all,
Hpe u had a good weekend. Today is day 6 of 10, but the theme is still on legal issues.
I still cant believe the learned friends have not spoken and left everything to Alex and Mike. If any of you runs into Evelyn R., Kihanya J., Omo J. or Clara R. just to mention a few, ask them if they can give us a shout without us having to 'open a file'
We have only today for this since tomorrow we move into the Economic Issues to be facilitated by a renowned IG expert to be unveiled in due course.
walu.
--- On Sat, 8/16/08, Alex Gakuru <alex.gakuru@yahoo.com <mailto:alex.gakuru@yahoo.com>> wrote:
From: Alex Gakuru <alex.gakuru@yahoo.com <mailto:alex.gakuru@yahoo.com>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10: IG Discussions, Legal Issues To: jwalu@yahoo.com <mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com> Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>> Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008, 11:17 AM G8 links!
The introduction to this topic was on the presumption that consumers were the criminals proceeding to outline law enforcement challenges. The most convenient and common form of misrepresenting cyber crimes and law -- first take away all their rights then they struggle to regain one after the other... It is good that Mike presents both sides of the story. Telecommunication companies hold massive data on all individuals and they ensure that their on their "Terms of Use" and contracts users are "guilty until proven innocent" and the companies are at liberty to do whatever they please with our personal data.
Consider below extract from a local telecommunication company's Terms of Use: - ------------ 5. Use of your information
(The Company) may hold and use information provided by you for a number of purposes, which may include:
(a) Carrying out any activity in connection with a legal, governmental or regulatory requirement on (The Company) in connection with legal proceedings or in respect of crime or fraud prevention, detection or prosecution.
(b) Monitoring or recording of your communications for (The Company)’s business purposes such as marketing, quality control and training, prevention of unauthorised use of (The Company)’s telecommunications system and ensuring effective systems operation in order to prevent or detect crime.
---------
"May include" does not mean "limited to" - implying that they are allowed, for example, to share, sell, etc private data to their partners... Exactly what Mike points out to on the Business Week link.
Framed in ways suggestive of company "law enforcer" (illegal roles) onto "guilty" users. Notice how "Intellectual Property" is conveniently repeated. Or is it be assumed that consumers do not have any "intellectual property" they would wish protected? the companies should abide to also protect. BTW, There is an IGF Dynamic Coalition movement calling for a balance between Intellectual Property and development which includes Access to Knwoledge (A2K).<http://www.ipjustice.org>. Very resourceful!
Supposing earlier proposed M-Medicine went ahead in East Africa? Sold ailments data to pharmaceutical companies, that would hike medicines prices in outbreak zones at selected locations... You go to a bank with a water-tight business proposals and all bank turn you down. Reason? They have shared your medical history and they think you will soon "sleep in the shamba" your excellent business proposals notwithstanding.
In summary, unless Data Protection and Privacy Laws are enacted, the default should be to deny all telecommunication companies legal loophole to trade with personal information. And it should be seen to be enforced.
On a lighter note, should I sue a WiFi company for trespassing when their signals enter my laptop, or should they sue me for illegally access of their signal? Over to Ben Shihanya.
Thanks again Mike!
--- On Fri, 8/15/08, Mike Theuri <mike.theuri@gmail.com <mailto:mike.theuri@gmail.com>> wrote:
From: Mike Theuri <mike.theuri@gmail.com <mailto:mike.theuri@gmail.com>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Day 5 of 10: IG Discussions, Legal Issues To: alex.gakuru@yahoo.com <mailto:alex.gakuru@yahoo.com> Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>> Date: Friday, August 15, 2008, 2:11 PM Not a legal opinion: It would be very difficult to apply existing common law (analogous to jurisprudence) to electronic crimes committed in a new era, atleast within the local context.
For these reasons it is necessary to define the crimes under distinct and separate legislation. Due to the borderless nature of the Internet (see shared link), it is necessary for such legislation to take a broad approach into account.
For instance there ought to be provisions that allow local authorities to seek the arrest and extradition of foreign based suspects from other jurisdictions for electronic crimes committed against citizens or local infrastructure owned by individuals or entities even though the suspects at the time of commission of the crime were present in other jurisdictions.
The same provision can allow private parties to pursue civil remedies in a similar matter and give them the basis where possible to enforce the judgement in the defendant's jurisdiction.
This for example would close the possible jurisdictional loophole of individuals crossing borders so as to commit electronic crimes from a country that lacks electronic crime laws. Current law is ill equipped in ensuring civil remedies, prosecution or arrest of local or international cyber criminals, 419ers, lurers of minors, harassers, electronically transmitted or created threats (threats to a person, threats to infrastructure by way of viruses, malaware, DoS etc) etc neither is it likely to be in a position to ensure serious consequences or deterents for the same or allow for the definition of crimes as distinguished here for an international gang of culprits:
http://www.secretservice.gov/press/GPA15-08_CyberIndictments_Final.pdf
It was recently reported that a bill or regulations to protect the data of consumers would be brought about as a means of
the CRBs. This could be model legislation/regulations to adopt to ensure that the public has a say in the manner in which their private information is used.
At the same time consumers ought to be able to instruct companies with whom they have business relationships with not to share
regulating that
same information with 3rd parties without their prior consent (ie opt-in/out). This is only effective if there are laws or regulations to provide for consequences when businesses violate the same.
As CRBs take root, there will be a likelihood that similar bureaus or entities will eventually start sharing information in real time, for example an underwriter of an insurance policy might want to check an individual's claim history across the industry to determine the level of risk the insured poses in determining policy premiums. Similarly an organization may want to conduct background checks for prospective employees in privately maintained electronic databases.
It is important that instead of regulations or laws being formed for sectors of the economy, that national data privacy laws and regulations be defined (or ammended) and on that basis refinement of specific regulations/laws could be made for sectors that require specific data requirements. Such regulatory foresight can reduce or avert the occurence of issues such as those seen here:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_31/b4094000643943.htm?campai...
On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 12:21 AM, John Walubengo <jwalu@yahoo.com <mailto:jwalu@yahoo.com>> wrote:
Mornings,
Today and next Monday, we intend to thrash out
Internet Governance. The typical issues revolve around: -Jurisdiction & Arbitration (who resolves e-disputes) -Copyright & IPR (are they pro or anti-development?) -Privacy and Data Protection (how is the e-Citizens data abused/protected?)
I do hope the 'learned' friends will chip in since I cannot pretend to be an expert here as I introduce the general legal
dispute resolutions can be done through, · Legislation; · Social norms (customs); · Self-regulation; · Regulation through code (software solution); · Jurisprudence (court decisions); · International law.
There is however two broad conflicting schools of
resolving disputes occasioned by the Internet. One group claims that whatever happens online does have an equivalent 'off-line' characteristics and as such existing laws can easily be applied. E.g stealing money electronically is no different from stealing money
charges and subsequent jurisdictional procedures could apply. However, the second group feels that electronic crimes have a totally different context and must have a separate and totally new set of legislation or methodologies for resolutions.
The borderless nature of the Internet brings to fore
legal dimensions of principals. Basically, thought when it comes to physically and so Robbery the Challenges of
Jurisdiction and Arbitration as in yesterday's example, where content in one country may be illegal but is legal in another. Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights issues are also explosive as demonstrated by the Napster Case, where some young software engineers created software that facilitated sharing of (SONY) Music files across the Internet. Also related was the case of Amazon.com trying to Patent the 'single-click' method of buying goods online.
Other cases touch on Data Privacy where Business Companies have been known to sell customer records to Marketing firms without express authority from the Customers. Other times customer data is simply hacked into and Businesses are unable to own up (going public) to
the the
detriment of the
Customer.
Most of these issues are under discussion internationally at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) amongst other fora. They present emerging legal challenges and it would be interesting to know if stakeholders in the East African region are/should be involved in shaping the outcomes of any of these issues.
2days on this one, today and next Monday and feel free to belatedly respond to Day 1 through Day 5 issues.
References: http://www.diplomacy.edu/ISL/IG/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster
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