On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 11:05 PM Tom Herbert <[email protected]> wrote:

> Application developers and stack developers are also players in this 
> game. And while each network provider might have the luxury of only 
> focusing on their customer set, developers have to potentially 
> address the needs of all users across the Internet.  This is why 
> network providers' attempts to protect the user are irrelevant to 
> application developers-- without consistency across the Internet 
> this level of security may as well not exist from their perspective. 
> Obviously this situation didn't materialize overnight and it shouldn't 
> be surprising that we've had to implement work-arounds to this 
> problem. For instance, encryption goes a long way in limiting the 
> network's visibility in the packet, but that does have its limits.

Tom

Let's not forget that some of those same developers are responsible for 
implementing surveillance capitalism, one of the most egregious invasions of 
user privacy and surely contrary to RFC 7258 - I know that people generally 
seem to focus on network-based monitoring, however application-based monitoring 
is potentially far more invasive.  Some of the application-based "work-arounds" 
to network security measures you reference could be helpful in allowing those 
applications to exfiltrate user data; if applications behave increasingly like 
malware then it should not come as a surprise if they are treated as such by 
networks in an effort to protect users.  

As noted elsewhere, I believe that it would be beneficial to the IETF community 
if greater efforts were made to engage with enterprise and public network 
CISOs, as well as more network operators.  This would help inject more 
understanding of current operational security practices and considerations into 
protocol development activity, which might help to avoid puzzlement when new 
developments are unleashed, only to find them blocked or only greeted with 
luke-warm enthusiasm by those that have operational responsibility for 
security, customer service etc.  

Andrew 

_______________________________________________
OPSEC mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/opsec

Reply via email to