Re: Review of WebRTC 1.0 from Privacy Interest Group

We do provide review comments and will consolidate them and bring them
back to you. I have to warn you that some of the stuff we may raise
will have been argued to death already at IETF and W3C, so it may be a
case of a bunch of responses on your end of the variety: "Yes, we
considered that before and the consensus of the group was x."  ::)

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 2:10 PM, Stefan Håkansson LK
<stefan.lk.hakansson@ericsson.com> wrote:
> Thanks Greg and Keiji for your reviews. Is it correct to interpret
> Christine's message as that PING will discuss further and come back with
> review comments representing the whole group?
>
> Br,
> Stefan
>
>
>
> On 17/02/16 18:09, Greg Norcie wrote:
>> I don't think you're misunderstanding, these all seem like valid points :)
>>
>> Looking forward to discussing!
>>
>>
>> /********************************************/*
>> *Greg Norcie (norcie@cdt.org <mailto:norcie@cdt.org>)
>> Staff Technologist
>> Center for Democracy & Technology
>> District of Columbia office
>> (p) 202-637-9800
>> PGP: http://norcie.com/pgp.txt
>>
>> *CDT's Annual Dinner (Tech Prom) is
>> April 6, 2016.  Don't miss out!
>> learn more at https://cdt.org/annual-dinner*
>> /*******************************************/*
>> *
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 10:54 AM, Keiji Takeda <tkeiji@w3.org
>> <mailto:tkeiji@w3.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Greg,
>>
>>     Thank you for sharing your thought.
>>
>>     I also have been reviewing the spec and have some points need to be
>>     discussed.
>>
>>     I feel like WebRTC is defining functions beyond current web security
>>     and privacy practices/principles so we need to examine their
>>     appropriateness carefully.
>>
>>     For example ...
>>
>>     - It makes holes in same origin policy.
>>     - It reveals client's IP addresses behind VPN or Tor.
>>     - It provides more fingerprinting surface to track users.
>>     - Most functions are all or nothing(as Greg pointed out) and it is
>>     difficult to be conscious unless users intentionally use WebRTC.
>>     (Attack can be effective against user who do not use WebRTC.)
>>
>>     I may be missing some point but please let me know if I am
>>     misunderstanding.
>>
>>     Keiji Takeda
>>
>>
>>     On 2/16/16 3:35 PM, Greg Norcie wrote:
>>
>>         Hi all,
>>
>>         I read through the WebRTC 1.0 spec, and I had a few things that
>>         jumped out,
>>         would love to hear if the rest of the group agrees/disagrees.
>>
>>         First, I noticed that the getStats[1] API seems to get a ton of
>>         granular
>>         data, some of which could be used to fingerprint users. Do we
>>         feel that
>>         this level of granularity is in keeping with previous guidance on
>>         Fingerprinting? [2]
>>
>>         Along similar lines, I noticed that consent for WebRTC seems to
>>         be quite
>>         all or nothing - once granted it seems to be difficult to revoke.
>>         Considering WebRTC can expose a user's local IP, maybe we should
>>         recommend
>>         that this consent be easily revocable and visible when in place?
>>
>>
>>         This has come up in two different reviews now[3], so we may want
>>         to give
>>         some guidance in the privacy questionnaire. (I will be looking
>>         at our
>>         current language and drafting some changes later this week)
>>
>>         [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/webrtc-stats/
>>         [2] https://w3c.github.io/fingerprinting-guidance/
>>         [3] The previous being the Permissions UI:
>>         https://www.w3.org/TR/permissions/
>>
>>
>>         /********************************************/
>>         Greg Norcie (norcie@cdt.org <mailto:norcie@cdt.org>)
>>         Staff Technologist
>>         Center for Democracy & Technology
>>         District of Columbia office
>>         (p) 202-637-9800 <tel:202-637-9800>
>>         PGP: http://norcie.com/pgp.txt
>>
>>
>>
>>         *CDT's Annual Dinner (Tech Prom) is April 6, 2016.  Don't miss
>>         out!learn
>>         more at https://cdt.org/annual-dinner
>>         <https://cdt.org/annual-dinner>*
>>
>>         /*******************************************/
>>
>>         On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 5:08 AM, Stefan Håkansson LK <
>>         stefan.lk.hakansson@ericsson.com
>>         <mailto:stefan.lk.hakansson@ericsson.com>> wrote:
>>
>>             Dear Privacy Interest Group,
>>
>>             The WebRTC Working Group is working toward publishing the
>>             WebRTC 1.0
>>             specification to Candidate Recommendation and is thus
>>             seeking wide
>>             review on the document:
>>
>>             https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/WD-webrtc-20160128/
>>
>>             We are particularly interested on feedback on the following
>>             aspects from
>>             PING:
>>             - the privacy considerations,
>>             - more specifically, the risks associated with exposing IP
>>             addresses as
>>             part of the establishment of the P2P connection,
>>             - the privacy properties of the identity verification mechanism,
>>             - the guarantees provided by isolated mediastreams.
>>
>>             We of course also welcome feedback on any other aspect of the
>>             specification..
>>
>>             We would appreciate if that feedback could be provided
>>             before the week
>>             of February 22 where our next meeting in scheduled, and no
>>             later than
>>             March 1st.
>>
>>             If you have any comments, we prefer you submit them as
>>             Github issues:
>>             https://github.com/w3c/webrtc-pc/issues
>>             Alternatively, you can send your comments by email to
>>             public-webrtc@w3.org <mailto:public-webrtc@w3.org>
>>             .
>>
>>             Thanks,
>>
>>             For the WebRTC co-chairs,
>>             Stefan Håkansson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>



-- 
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Chief Technologist, Center for Democracy & Technology [https://www.cdt.org]
e: joe@cdt.org, p: 202.407.8825, pgp: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key
Fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10  1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871

CDT's annual dinner, Tech Prom, is April 6, 2016! https://cdt.org/annual-dinner

Received on Wednesday, 17 February 2016 21:44:43 UTC