title: Human Rights Protocol Considerations - Research Report docname: draft-doria-hrpc-report date: 2016-01-05 category: info
ipr: trust200902
area: IRTF workgroup: Human Rights Protocol Consideration RG keyword: Internet-Draft stand_alone: yes pi: rfcedstyle: yes toc: yes tocindent: yes sortrefs: yes symrefs: yes strict: yes comments: yes inline: yes text-list-symbols: -o*+
ins: A. Doria name: Avri Doria org: APC email: [email protected]
normative:
informative: RFC1958: RFC1984: RFC2026: RFC2639: RFC2919: RFC3365: RFC5890: RFC5891: RFC5892: RFC5893: RFC6162: RFC6783: RFC6973: RFC7230: RFC7231: RFC7232: RFC7234: RFC7235: RFC7236: RFC7237: RFC7258: UDHR: title: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights date: 1948 author: org: United Nations General Assembly target: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
HRPC-GLOSSARY: title: Human Rights Protocol Considerations Glossary date: 2015 author: - ins: N. ten Oever - ins: A. Doria - ins: D. K. Gillmor target: https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-dkg-hrpc-glossary-00.txt
HRPC-Method: title: Human Rights Protocol Considerations Methodology date: 2015 author: - ins: J. Varon - ins: C. Cath target: https://www.ietf.org/id/draft-varon-hrpc-methodology-00.txt
Cath: title: A case study of codeing rights date: 2015 author: - ins: C. Cath
Clark:
title: The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols
author:
- ins: D. Clark
seriesinfo: Proc SIGCOMM 88, ACM CCR Vol 18, Number 4, August
1988, pp. 106-114.
date: 1988
Blumenthal: title: Rethinking the design of the Internet The end-to-end arguments vs. the brave new world author: - ins: M. Blumenthal - ins: D.D. Clark seriesinfo: ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, Vol. 1, No. 1, August 2001, pp 70-109. date: 2001
Liddicoat: title: Human Rights and Internet Protocols author: - ins: J. Liddicoat - ins: A. Doria target: https://www.apc.org/en/pubs/human-rights-and-internet-protocols-comparing-proc
Denardis: title: Protocol Politics author: - ins: L. Denardis date: 2013
Netmundial: title: NETmundial Multistakeholder Statement date: 2014 target: http://netmundial.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NETmundial-Multistakeholder-Document.pdf
Post: title: Internet Infrastructure and IP Censorship author: - ins: D. Post date: 2015 target: http://www.ipjustice.org/digital-rights/internet-infrastructure-and-ip-censorship-bydavid-post/
Zittrain: title: The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It date: 2008 author: - ins: J. Zittrain
--- abstract
This document present an overview snapshot of the project to map engineering concepts at the protocol level that may be related to promotion and protection of the freedom of expression and association.
This first draft is intended to provide the framework for reporting on the study, initial results and basic considerations. At a later stage it will fold in the work being done in the Methodology and Glossary drafts as well as the work being done in the case studies. It also folds in some of the text included in the original proposal for the HRPC.
Discussion on this draft at: [email protected] // https://www.irtf.org/mailman/admindb/hrpc
--- middle
The recognition that human rights have a role in Internet policies has become part of the general discourse. Several reports from former United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue, have made such relation explicit, which lead to the approval of the landmark resolution "on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet" at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). And, more recently, to the resolution "The right to privacy in the digital age" at the UN General Assembly. The NETmundial outcome document {{Netmundial}} affirms that human rights, as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights {{UDHR}}, should underpin Internet governance principles.
Nevertheless, a direct relation between Internet Standards and human rights is still something to be explored and more clearly demonstrated.
Concerns for freedom of expression and association were a strong part of the world-view of the community involved in developing the first Internet protocols. Apparently, by intention or by coincidence, the Internet was designed with freedom and openness of communications as core values. But as the scale and the commercialization of the Internet has grown, the influence of such world-views had to compete with other values, such as ease of development and cost. The purpose of this research is to discover and document the consideration involved in taking human rights into account when creating protocols.
In a manner similar to the work done for RFC 6973 {{RFC6973}} on Privacy Consideration Guidelines, the premise of this research is that some standards and protocols can solidify, enable or threaten user rights.
As stated in RFC 1958 {{RFC1958}}, the Internet aims to be the global network of networks that provides unfettered connectivity to all users at all times and for any content. Open, secure and reliable connectivity is essential for rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of association, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights {{UDHR}}. Therefore, considering connectivity as the ultimate objective of the Internet, this makes a clear case that the Internet is not only an enabler of human rights, but that human rights lie at the basis of, and are ingrained in, the architecture of the network.
An essential part of maintaining the Internet as a tool for communication and connectivity is security. Indeed, "development of security mechanisms is seen as a key factor in the future growth of the Internet as a motor for international commerce and communication" RFC 1984 [RFC1984] and according to the Danvers Doctrine RFC 3365 {{RFC3365}}, there is an overwhelming consensus in the IETF that the best security should be used and standardized.
In RFC 1984 {{RFC1984}}, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), the bodies which oversee architecture and standards for the Internet, expressed: "concern by the need for increased protection of international commercial transactions on the Internet, and by the need to offer all Internet users an adequate degree of privacy." Indeed, the IETF has been doing a significant job in this area {{RFC6973}} {{RFC7258}}, considering privacy concerns as a subset of security concerns. {{RFC6973}}
Besides privacy, it should be possible to highlight other aspects of connectivity embedded in standards and protocols that can have human rights considerations. This report focuses on freedom of expression and the right to association and assembly online.
Currently defined in draft-dkg-hrpc-glossary to be folded in at appropriate time.
- Include discussion of value laden engineering as discussed in {{Cath}}
- Include discussion of "Values and Networks" work by Roland Bless
- Include discussion of principles from NetMundial Multistakeholder Statement
This project is focused on two rights defined in the UDHR {{UDHR}}, Article 19 on Freedom of Expression and Article 20 of Freedom of Association.
Article 19 : Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Article 20 : 1 Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. : 2 No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
When looking at protocols the considerations can apply from several perspectives.
- The protocol's direct effects on human rights on the Internet.
- The protocol's direct effect on human rights in combination with other protocols
- The effect of specific protocol elements, separately or in combination with other protocol elements on human rights on the Internet
- The ability to determine when various effects are occurring, i.e. transparency
- The effect of deployment or non deployment. While this may be may seem beyond the protocol itself, often the design of protocol, its difficulty in implementation and the degree to which it contains required elements, poison pills or other protocol artifacts that either encourage or discourse implementation or deployment can be significant in the overall human rights affect of a protocol.
Look at some of the academic research on the topic including David Post, Jonathan Zittrain and Laura Denardis, among others.
Currently defined in detail in draft-varon-hrpc-methodolgy to be folded in at appropriate time. this will largely be a reproduction of Section 3 of that document that focuses on the methodology
Briefly methodology has included:
- scoping the research problem
- determining terminology to be use linking engineering and human rights concepts
- establishing methodology
- case studies on a set of protocols
- derivation of possible considerations
In each of the case studies, the behavior of the protocols is analysed for its positive and negative effects. In some case these effects are due to the design of the protocol itself, in others they are due to existing or absent features.
Early versions of the analysis on the following protocols are currently being discussed on HRPC list. Once the discussions have matured those discussions will be folded in this section.
Text being done by Will Scott on the HRPC list.
Text being done by Will Scott on HRPC list.
Text being done by Nex / Claudio on HRPC list.
Text being done by Will Scott on HRPC list.
Text being done by Nex on HRPC List.
The case studies point to several areas of protocol behavior that may be appropriate for considerations:
- Character encoding for internationalization
- DNS Record
- Distortion
- Injection
- Removal
- Network Poisoning
- Traffic
- Interception
- Manipulation
- Throttling
- User Identification
- Source and Destination visibility
- Tracking
Additionally, discussion of the rights themselves and the evidence of these rights being implicits in the IETF design principles {{Clark}} and in some of the existing architecture and protocols, Cath and Liddicoat suggest other considerations.
Once the first take at consideration are defined, what are the next steps for creating something that can be sesable for protocol designers and implementers in considering freedom of expression and and freedom of association in their work.
A section that include the many contributors of text as as commenters and those who are assisitng this project in existing.
There shouldn't be any.
There shouldn't be any.