Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) G. Grover
Request for Comments: 9620
Updates: 8280 N. ten Oever
Category: Informational University of Amsterdam
ISSN: 2070-1721 September 2024
Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol and Architecture Considerations
Abstract
This document sets guidelines for human rights considerations for
developers working on network protocols and architectures, similar to
the work done on the guidelines for privacy considerations (RFC
6973). This is an updated version of the guidelines for human rights
considerations in RFC 8280.
This document is a product of the Human Right Protocol Considerations
(HRPC) Research Group in the IRTF.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Research Task Force
(IRTF). The IRTF publishes the results of Internet-related research
and development activities. These results might not be suitable for
deployment. This RFC represents the consensus of the Human Rights
Protocol Considerations Research Group of the Internet Research Task
Force (IRTF). Documents approved for publication by the IRSG are not
candidates for any level of Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC
7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9620.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Human Rights Threats
3. Conducting Human Rights Reviews
3.1. Analyzing Internet-Drafts Based on Guidelines for Human
Rights Considerations Model
3.2. Analyzing Internet-Drafts Based on Their Perceived or
Speculated Impact
3.3. Expert Interviews
3.4. Interviews with Impacted Persons and Communities
3.5. Tracing Impacts of Implementations
4. Guidelines for Human Rights Considerations
4.1. Intermediaries
4.2. Connectivity
4.3. Reliability
4.4. Content Signals
4.5. Internationalization
4.6. Localization
4.7. Open Standards
4.8. Heterogeneity Support
4.9. Adaptability
4.10. Integrity
4.11. Authenticity
4.12. Confidentiality
4.13. Security
4.14. Privacy
4.15. Anonymity and Pseudonymity
4.15.1. Pseudonymity
4.15.2. Unlinkability
4.16. Censorship Resistance
4.17. Outcome Transparency
4.18. Accessibility
4.19. Decentralization
4.20. Remedy
4.21. Miscellaneous Considerations
5. Document Status
6. Security Considerations
7. IANA Considerations
8. Research Group Information
9. Informative References
Acknowledgements
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
This document outlines a set of human rights protocol considerations
for protocol developers. It provides questions that engineers should
ask themselves when developing or improving protocols if they want to
understand how their decisions can potentially influence the exercise
of human rights on the Internet. It should be noted that the impact
of a protocol cannot solely be deduced from its design, but its usage
and implementation should also be studied to form a full human rights
impact assessment.
The questions are based on the research performed by the Human Rights
Protocol Considerations (HRPC) Research Group, which has been
documented before these considerations. The research establishes
that human rights relate to standards and protocols and offers a
common vocabulary of technical concepts that influence human rights
and how these technical concepts can be combined to ensure that the
Internet remains an enabling environment for human rights. With
this, the contours of a model for developing human rights protocol
considerations has taken shape.
This document is an iteration of the guidelines that can be found in
[RFC8280]. The methods for conducting human rights reviews
(Section 3.2) and the guidelines for human rights considerations
(Section 3.3) in this document are being tested for relevance,
accuracy, and validity [HR-RT]. The understanding of what human
rights are is based on the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
[UDHR] and subsequent treaties that jointly form the body of
international human rights law [UNHR].
This document does not provide a detailed taxonomy of the nature of
(potential) human rights violations, whether direct or indirect /
long-term or short-term, that certain protocol choices might present.
In part, it is because this is highly context-dependent and also
because this document aims to provide a practical set of guidelines.
However, further research in this field would definitely benefit
developers and implementers.
This informational document has consensus for publication from the
Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Human Right Protocol
Considerations (HRPC) Research Group. It has been reviewed, tried,
and tested by both the research group as well as researchers and
practitioners from outside the research group. The research group
acknowledges that the understanding of the impact of Internet
protocols and architecture on society is a developing practice and is
a body of research that is still ongoing. This document is not an
IETF product and is not a standard.
2. Human Rights Threats
Threats to the exercise of human rights on the Internet come in many
forms. Protocols and standards may harm or enable the right to
freedom of expression; right to freedom of information; right to non-
discrimination; right to equal protection; right to participate in
cultural life, arts, and science; right to freedom of assembly and
association; right to privacy; and right to security. An end user
who is denied access to certain services or content may be unable to
disclose vital information about the malpractices of a government or
other authority. A person whose communications are monitored may be
prevented or dissuaded from exercising their right to freedom of
association or participate in political processes [Penney]. In a
worst-case scenario, protocols that leak information can lead to
physical danger. A realistic example to consider is when individuals
perceived as threats to the state are subjected to torture, extra-
judicial killing, or detention on the basis of information gathered
by state agencies through the monitoring of network traffic.
This document presents several examples of how threats to human
rights materialize on the Internet. This threat modeling is inspired
by "Privacy Considerations for Internet Protocols" [RFC6973], which
is based on security threat analysis. This method is a work in
progress and by no means a perfect solution for assessing human
rights risks in Internet protocols and systems. Certain specific
human rights threats are indirectly considered in Internet protocols
as part of the security considerations [RFC3552]; however, privacy
considerations [RFC6973] or reviews, let alone human rights impact
assessments of protocols, are neither standardized nor implemented.
Many threats, enablers, and risks are linked to different rights.
This is not surprising if one takes into account that human rights
are interrelated, interdependent, and indivisible. However, here
we're not discussing all human rights because not all human rights
are relevant to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in
general and to protocols and standards in particular [Orwat]:
| The main source of the values of human rights is the
| _International Bill of Human Rights_ that is composed of the
| _Universal Declaration of Human Rights_ (UDHR) [UDHR] along with
| the _International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights_ (ICCPR)
| [ICCPR] and the _International Covenant on Economic, Social and
| Cultural Rights_ (ICESCR) [ICESCR]. In the light of several cases
| of Internet censorship, the UN Human Rights Council Resolution
| 20/8 was adopted in 2012, affirming that "...the same rights that
| people have offline must also be protected online..." [UNHRC2016].
| In 2015, the _Charter of Human Rights and Principles for the
| Internet_ [IRP] was developed and released [Jorgensen]. According
| to these documents, some examples of human rights relevant for ICT
| systems are _human dignity_ (Art. 1 UDHR), _non-discrimination_
| (Art. 2), _rights to life, liberty and security_ (Art. 3),
| _freedom of opinion and expression_ (Art. 19), _freedom of
| assembly and association_ (Art. 20), _rights to equal protection,
| legal remedy, fair trial, due process, presumed innocent_ (Art.
| 7-11), _appropriate social and international order_ (Art. 28),
| _participation in public affairs_ (Art. 21), _participation in
| cultural life, protection of intellectual property_ (Art. 27), and
| _privacy_ (Art. 12).
A partial catalog of human rights related to ICTs, including economic
rights, can be found in [Hill].
This is by no means an attempt to exclude specific rights or
prioritize some rights over others.
3. Conducting Human Rights Reviews
Ideally, protocol developers and collaborators should incorporate
human rights considerations into the design process itself (see
Section 3.1 ("Analyzing Internet-Drafts Based on Guidelines for Human
Rights Considerations Model")). This section provides guidance on
how to conduct a human rights review, i.e., gauge the impact or
potential impact of a protocol or standard on human rights.
Human rights reviews can be done by any participant and can take
place at different stages of the development process of an Internet-
Draft. Generally speaking, it is easier to influence the development
of a technology at earlier stages than at later stages. This does
not mean that reviews at Last Call are not relevant, but they are
less likely to result in significant changes in the reviewed
document.
Human rights reviews can be done by document authors, document
shepherds, members of review teams, advocates, or impacted
communities to influence the standards development process. IETF
documents can benefit from people with different knowledge,
perspectives, and backgrounds, especially since their implementations
can impact many different communities as well.
Methods for analyzing technology for specific human rights impacts
are still quite nascent. Currently, five methods have been explored
by the human rights review team, often in conjunction with each
other.
3.1. Analyzing Internet-Drafts Based on Guidelines for Human Rights
Considerations Model
This analysis of Internet-Drafts uses the model as described in
Section 4. The outlined categories and questions can be used to
review an Internet-Draft. The advantage of this is that it provides
a known overview, and document authors can go back to this document
as well as [RFC8280] to understand the background and the context.
3.2. Analyzing Internet-Drafts Based on Their Perceived or Speculated
Impact
When reviewing an Internet-Draft, specific human rights impacts can
become apparent by doing a close reading of the draft and seeking to
understand how it might affect networks or society. While less
structured than the straight use of the human rights considerations
model, this analysis may lead to new speculative understandings of
links between human rights and protocols.
3.3. Expert Interviews
Interviews with document authors, active members of the working
group, or experts in the field can help explore the characteristics
of the protocol and its effects. There are two main advantages to
this approach:
1. It allows the reviewer to gain a deeper understanding of the
(intended) workings of the protocol.
2. It allows for the reviewer to start a discussion with experts or
even document authors, which can help the review gain traction
when it is published.
3.4. Interviews with Impacted Persons and Communities
Protocols impact users of the Internet. Interviews can help the
reviewer understand how protocols affect the people that use the
protocols. Since human rights are best understood from the
perspective of the rights-holder, this approach will improve the
understanding of the real-world effects of the technology. At the
same time, it can be hard to attribute specific changes to a
particular protocol; this is of course even harder when a protocol
has not been widely deployed.
3.5. Tracing Impacts of Implementations
The reality of deployed protocols can be at odds with the
expectations during the protocol design and development phase
[RFC8980]. When a specification already has associated running code,
the code can be analyzed either in an experimental setting or on the
Internet where its impact can be observed. In contrast to reviewing
the draft text, this approach can allow the reviewer to understand
how the specifications work in practice and potentially what unknown
or unexpected effects the technology has.
4. Guidelines for Human Rights Considerations
This section provides guidance for document authors in the form of a
questionnaire about protocols and how technical decisions can shape
the exercise of human rights. The questionnaire may be useful at any
point in the design process, particularly after the document authors
have developed a high-level protocol model as described in [RFC4101].
These guidelines do not seek to replace any existing referenced
specifications but, rather, contribute to them and look at the design
process from a human rights perspective.
Protocols and Internet Standards might benefit from a documented
discussion of potential human rights risks arising from potential
misapplications of the protocol or technology described in the
Request for Comments (RFC). This might be coupled with an
Applicability Statement for that RFC.
Note that the guidance provided in this section does not recommend
specific practices. The range of protocols developed in the IETF is
too broad to make recommendations about particular uses of data or
how human rights might be balanced against other design goals.
However, by carefully considering the answers to the following
questions, document authors should be able to produce a comprehensive
analysis that can serve as the basis for discussion on whether the
protocol adequately takes specific human rights threats into account.
This guidance is meant to help the thought process of a human rights
analysis; it does not provide specific directions for how to write a
human rights considerations section (following the example set in
[RFC6973]).
In considering these questions, authors will need to be aware of the
potential of technical advances or the passage of time to undermine
protections. In general, considerations of rights are likely to be
more effective if they have a purpose and specific use cases rather
than abstract, absolute goals.
Also note that while the section uses the word "protocol", the
principles identified in these questions may be applicable to other
types of solutions (extensions to existing protocols, architecture
for solutions to specific problems, etc.).
4.1. Intermediaries
Question(s): Does your protocol depend on or allow for protocol-
specific functions at intermediary nodes?
Explanation: The end-to-end principle [Saltzer] holds that certain
functions can and should be performed at "ends" of the network.
[RFC1958] states that "in very general terms, the community believes
that the goal is connectivity ... and the intelligence is end to end
rather than hidden in the network". There are new opportunities for
failure when a protocol exchange includes both endpoints and an
intermediary, especially when the intermediary is not under control
of either endpoint, or is even largely invisible to it, for instance,
as with intercepting HTTPS proxies [HTTPS-interception]. This
pattern also contributes to ossification because the intermediaries
may impose protocol restrictions -- sometimes in violation of the
specification -- that prevent the endpoints from using more modern
protocols, as described in Section 9.3 of [RFC8446].
Note that intermediaries are distinct from services. In the former
case, the third-party element is part of the protocol exchange;
whereas in the latter, the endpoints communicate explicitly with the
service. The client/server pattern provides clearer separation of
responsibilities between elements than having an intermediary.
However, even in client/server systems, it is often good practice to
provide for end-to-end encryption between endpoints for protocol
elements that are outside of the scope of the service, as in the
design of Messaging Layer Security (MLS) [RFC9420].
Example: Encryption between the endpoints can be used to protect the
protocol from interference by intermediaries. The encryption of
transport layer information in QUIC [RFC9000] and of the TLS Server
Name Indication (SNI) field [TLS-ESNI] are examples of this practice.
One consequence of this is to limit the extent to which network
operators can inspect traffic, requiring them to have control of the
endpoints in order to monitor their behavior.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.2. Connectivity
Questions(s): Is your protocol optimized for low-bandwidth and high-
latency connections? Could your protocol also be developed in a
stateless manner?
Considering the fact that network quality and conditions vary across
geography and time, it is also important to design protocols such
that they are reliable even on low-bandwidth and high-latency
connections.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.3. Reliability
Question(s): Is your protocol fault tolerant? Does it downgrade
gracefully, i.e., with mechanisms for fallback and/or notice? Can
your protocol resist malicious degradation attempts? Do you have a
documented way to announce degradation? Do you have measures in
place for recovery or partial healing from failure? Can your
protocol maintain dependability and performance in the face of
unanticipated changes or circumstances?
Explanation: Reliability and resiliency ensures that a protocol will
execute its function consistently and resistant to error, as
described, and will function without unexpected results. Measures
for reliability in protocols assure users that their intended
communication was successfully executed.
A system that is reliable degrades gracefully and will have a
documented way to announce degradation. It will also have mechanisms
to recover from failure gracefully and, if applicable, will allow for
partial healing.
It is important here to draw a distinction between random degradation
and malicious degradation. Some attacks against previous versions of
TLS, for example, exploited TLS' ability to gracefully downgrade to
non-secure cipher suites [FREAK] [Logjam]; from a functional
perspective, this is useful, but from a security perspective, this
can be disastrous.
For reliability, it is necessary that services notify the users if a
delivery fails. In the case of real-time systems, in addition to the
reliable delivery, the protocol needs to safeguard timeliness.
Example: In the modern IP stack structure, a reliable transport layer
requires an indication that transport processing has successfully
completed, such as given by TCP's ACK message [RFC9293]. Similarly,
an application-layer protocol may require an application-specific
acknowledgement that contains, among other things, a status code
indicating the disposition of the request (see [RFC3724]).
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to security
4.4. Content Signals
Question(s): Does your protocol include explicit or implicit
plaintext elements, in either the payload or the headers, that can be
used for differential treatment? Is there a way to minimize leaking
such data to network intermediaries? If not, is there a way for
deployments of the protocol to make the differential treatment
(including prioritization of certain traffic), if any, auditable for
negative impacts on net neutrality?
Example: When network intermediaries are able to determine the type
of content that a packet is carrying, then they can use that
information to discriminate in favor of one type of content and
against another. This impacts users' ability to send and receive the
content of their choice.
As recommended in [RFC8558], protocol designers should avoid the
construction of implicit signals of their content. In general,
protocol designers should avoid adding explicit signals for
intermediaries. In certain cases, it may be necessary to add such
explicit signals, but designers should only do so when they provide
clear benefit to end users (see [RFC8890] for more on the priority of
constituencies). In these cases, the implications of those signals
for human rights should be documented.
Note that many protocols provide signals that are intended for
endpoints that can be used as implicit signals by intermediaries for
traffic discrimination, based on either the content (e.g., TCP port
numbers) or the sender/receiver (IP addresses). Where possible,
these should be protected from intermediaries by encryption. In many
cases (e.g., IP addresses), these signals are difficult to remove;
but in other cases, such as TLS Application Layer Protocol
Negotiation [RFC7301], there are active efforts to protect this data
[TLS-ESNI].
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to non-discrimination
* Right to equal protection
4.5. Internationalization
Question(s): Does your protocol or specification define text string
elements, in the payload or headers, that have to be understood or
entered by humans? Does your specification allow Unicode? If so, do
you accept texts in one character set (which must be UTF-8) or
several (which is dangerous for interoperability)? If charsets or
encodings other than UTF-8 are allowed, does your specification
mandate a proper tagging of the charset? Did you have a look at
[RFC6365]?
Explanation: Internationalization refers to the practice of making
protocols, standards, and implementations usable in different
languages and scripts (see Section 4.6 ("Localization")). In the
IETF, internationalization means to add or improve the handling of
non-ASCII text in a protocol [RFC6365]. A different perspective,
more appropriate to protocols that are designed for global use from
the beginning, is the definition used by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) [W3Ci18nDef]:
| Internationalization is the design and development of a product,
| application or document content that enables easy localization for
| target audiences that vary in culture, region, or language.
Many protocols that handle text only handle one charset (US-ASCII) or
leave the question of what coded charset and encoding are used up to
local guesswork (which leads, of course, to interoperability
problems). If multiple charsets are permitted, they must be
explicitly identified [RFC2277]. Adding non-ASCII text to a protocol
allows the protocol to handle more scripts, hopefully representing
users across the world. In today's world, that is normally best
accomplished by allowing only Unicode encoded in UTF-8.
In current IETF practice [RFC2277], internationalization is aimed at
user-facing strings, not protocol elements, such as the verbs used by
some text-based protocols. (Do note that some strings are both
content and protocol elements, such as identifiers.) Although this
is reasonable practice for non-user visible elements, developers
should provide full and equal support for all scripts and charsets in
the user-facing features of protocols and for any content they carry.
Example: See Section 4.6 ("Localization").
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to political participation
* Right to participate in cultural life, arts, and science
4.6. Localization
Question(s): Does your protocol uphold the standards of
internationalization? Have you made any concrete steps towards
localizing your protocol for relevant audiences?
Explanation: "Localization refers to the adaptation of a product,
application or document content to meet the language, cultural and
other requirements of a specific target market (a 'locale')"
[W3Ci18nDef]. For our purposes, it can be described as the practice
of translating an implementation to make it functional in a specific
language or for users in a specific locale (see Section 4.5
("Internationalization")). Internationalization is related to
localization, but they are not the same. Internationalization is a
necessary precondition for localization.
Example: The Internet is a global medium, but many of its protocols
and products are developed with certain audiences in mind that often
share particular characteristics like knowing how to read and write
in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and
knowing English. This limits the ability of a large part of the
world's online population from using the Internet in a way that is
culturally and linguistically accessible. An example of a standard
that has taken into account the view that individuals like to have
access to data in their preferred language can be found in [RFC5646].
The document describes a way to label information with an identifier
for the language in which it is written. And this allows information
to be presented and accessed in more than one language.
Impacts:
* Right to non-discrimination
* Right to participate in cultural life, arts, and science
* Right to freedom of expression
4.7. Open Standards
Question(s): Is your protocol fully documented in a way that it could
be easily implemented, improved, built upon, and/or further
developed? Do you depend on proprietary code for the implementation,
running, or further development of your protocol? Does your protocol
favor a particular proprietary specification over technically
equivalent competing specification(s), for instance, by making any
incorporated vendor specification "required" or "recommended"
[RFC2026]? Do you normatively reference another standard that is
behind a paywall (and could you do without it)? Are you aware of any
patents that would prevent your standard from being fully implemented
[RFC8179] [RFC6701]?
Explanation: The Internet was able to be developed into the global
network of networks because of the existence of open, non-proprietary
standards [Zittrain]. They are crucial for enabling
interoperability. Yet, open standards are not explicitly defined
within the IETF. On the subject, [RFC2026] states:
| Various national and international standards bodies, such as ANSI,
| ISO, IEEE, and ITU-T, develop a variety of protocol and service
| specifications that are similar to Technical Specifications
| defined here [at the IETF]. National and international groups
| also publish "implementors' agreements" that are analogous to
| Applicability Statements, capturing a body of implementation-
| specific detail concerned with the practical application of their
| standards. All of these are considered to be "open external
| standards" for the purposes of the Internet Standards Process.
Similarly, [RFC3935] does not define open standards but does
emphasize the importance of an "open process", i.e.:
| ... any interested person can participate in the work, know what
| is being decided, and make [their] voice heard on the issue.
Open standards (and open source software) allow users to glean
information about how the tools they are using work, including the
tools' security and privacy properties. They additionally allow for
permissionless innovation, which is important to maintain the freedom
and ability to freely create and deploy new protocols on top of the
communications constructs that currently exist. It is at the heart
of the Internet as we know it, and to maintain its fundamentally open
nature, we need to be mindful of the need for developing open
standards.
All standards that need to be normatively implemented should be
freely available and with reasonable protection for patent
infringement claims so that they can also be implemented in open
source or free software. Patents have often held back open
standardization or been used against those deploying open standards,
particularly in the domain of cryptography [Newegg]. An exemption of
this is sometimes made when a standardized protocol normatively
relies on specifications produced by others Standards Development
Organizations (SDOs) that are not freely available. Patents in open
standards or in normative references to other standards should have a
patent disclosure [Note-well], royalty-free licensing
[Patent-policy], or some other form of fair, reasonable, and non-
discriminatory terms.
Example: [RFC6108] describes a system for providing critical end-user
notifications to web browsers, which has been deployed by Comcast, an
Internet Service Provider (ISP). Such a notification system is being
used to provide near-immediate notifications to customers, such as to
warn them that their traffic exhibits patterns that are indicative of
malware or virus infection. There are other proprietary systems that
can perform such notifications, but those systems utilize Deep Packet
Inspection (DPI) technology. In contrast, that document describes a
system that does not rely upon DPI and is instead based on open IETF
standards and open source applications.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to participate in cultural life, arts, and science
4.8. Heterogeneity Support
Question(s): Does your protocol support heterogeneity by design?
Does your protocol allow for multiple types of hardware? Does your
protocol allow for multiple types of application protocols? Is your
protocol liberal in what it receives and handles? Will it remain
usable and open if the context changes?
Explanation: The Internet is characterized by heterogeneity on many
levels: devices, nodes, router scheduling algorithms, queue
management mechanisms, routing protocols, levels of multiplexing,
protocol versions and implementations, and underlying link layers
(e.g., point-to-point, multi-access links, wireless, Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), etc.) in the traffic mix and in
the levels of congestion at different times and places. Moreover, as
the Internet is composed of autonomous organizations and ISPs, each
with their own separate policy concerns, there is a large
heterogeneity of administrative domains and pricing structures. As a
result, the heterogeneity principle proposed in [RFC1958] needs to be
supported by design [FIArch].
Heterogeneity support in protocols can, thus, enable a wide range of
devices and (by extension) users to participate on the network.
Example: Heterogeneity significantly contributed to the success of
the Internet architecture [Zittrain]. There is a famous quote often
attributed to Niels Bohr: "Prediction is very difficult, especially
if it's about the future." This also holds true for future uses of
the Internet architecture and infrastructure. Therefore, as a rule
of thumb, it is important to -- as far as possible -- design your
protocol for different devices and uses, especially at lower layers
of the stack. However, if you choose not to do this, it could be
relevant to document the reasoning for that.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to political participation
4.9. Adaptability
Question(s): Is your protocol written in a modular fashion, and does
it facilitate or hamper extensibility? In this sense, does your
protocol impact permissionless innovation? (See Section 4.7 ("Open
Standards").)
Explanation: Adaptability is closely interrelated with permissionless
innovation: both maintain the freedom and ability to create and
deploy new protocols on top of the communications constructs that
currently exist. It is at the heart of the Internet as we know it,
and to maintain its fundamentally open nature, we need to be mindful
of the impact of protocols on maintaining or reducing permissionless
innovation to ensure that the Internet can continue to develop.
Adaptability and permissionless innovation can be used to shape
information networks as groups of users prefer. Furthermore, a
precondition of adaptability is the ability of the people who can
adapt the network to be able to know and understand the network.
This is why adaptability and permissionless innovation are inherently
connected to the right to education and the right to science as well
as the right to freedom of assembly and association and the right to
freedom of expression, since it allows the users of the network to
determine how to assemble, collaborate, and express themselves.
Example: WebRTC generates audio and/or video data. WebRTC can be
used in different locations by different parties; WebRTC's standard
Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are developed to support
applications from different voice service providers. Multiple
parties will have similar capabilities. In order to ensure that all
parties can build upon existing standards, these need to be adaptable
and allow for permissionless innovation.
Impacts:
* Right to education
* Right to science
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.10. Integrity
Question(s): Does your protocol maintain, assure, and/or verify the
accuracy of payload data? Does your protocol maintain and assure the
consistency of data? Does your protocol in any way allow for the
data to be (intentionally or unintentionally) altered?
Explanation: Integrity refers to the maintenance and assurance of the
accuracy and consistency of data to ensure it has not been
(intentionally or unintentionally) altered.
Example: Integrity verification of data is important to prevent
vulnerabilities and attacks from on-path attackers. These attacks
happen when a third party (often for malicious reasons) intercepts a
communication between two parties, inserting themselves in the middle
and changing the content of the data. In practice, this looks as
follows:
Alice wants to communicate with Bob. Alice sends a message to Bob,
which Corinne intercepts and modifies. Bob cannot see that the data
from Alice was altered by Corinne. Corinne intercepts and alters the
communication as it is sent between Alice and Bob. Corinne is able
to control the communication content.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to security
4.11. Authenticity
Question(s): Do you have sufficient measures to confirm the truth of
an attribute of a single piece of data or entity? Can the attributes
get garbled along the way (see Section 4.13 ("Security"))? If
relevant, have you implemented IPsec, DNS Security (DNSSEC), HTTPS,
and other standard security best practices?
Explanation: Authenticity ensures that data does indeed come from the
source it claims to come from. This is important to prevent certain
attacks or unauthorized access and use of data.
At the same time, authentication should not be used as a way to
prevent heterogeneity support, as is often done for vendor lock-in or
digital rights management.
Example: Authentication of data is important to prevent
vulnerabilities and attacks from on-path attackers. These attacks
happen when a third party (often for malicious reasons) intercepts a
communication between two parties, inserting themselves in the middle
and posing as both parties. In practice, this looks as follows:
Alice wants to communicate with Bob. Alice sends data to Bob.
Corinne intercepts the data sent to Bob. Corinne reads (and
potentially alters) the message to Bob. Bob cannot see that the data
did not come from Alice but from Corinne.
With proper authentication, the scenario would be as follows:
Alice wants to communicate with Bob. Alice sends data to Bob.
Corinne intercepts the data sent to Bob. Corinne reads and alters
the message to Bob. Bob is unable to verify whether that the data
came from Alice.
Impacts:
* Right to privacy
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to security
4.12. Confidentiality
Question(s): Does the protocol expose the transmitted data over the
wire? Does the protocol expose information related to identifiers or
data? If so, what does it reveal to each protocol entity (i.e.,
recipients, intermediaries, and enablers) [RFC6973]? What options
exist for protocol implementers to choose to limit the information
shared with each entity? What operational controls are available to
limit the information shared with each entity?
What controls or consent mechanisms does the protocol define or
require before personal data or identifiers are shared or exposed via
the protocol? If no such mechanisms or controls are specified, is it
expected that control and consent will be handled outside of the
protocol?
Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to share different
pieces of information with different recipients? If not, are there
mechanisms that exist outside of the protocol to provide initiators
with such control?
Does the protocol provide ways for initiators to limit the sharing or
expressing of individuals' preferences to recipients or
intermediaries with regard to the collection, use, or disclosure of
their personal data? If not, are there mechanisms that exist outside
of the protocol to provide users with such control? Is it expected
that users will have relationships that govern the use of the
information (contractual or otherwise) with those who operate these
intermediaries? Does the protocol prefer encryption over cleartext
operation?
Explanation: Confidentiality refers to keeping your data secret from
unintended listeners [RFC3552]. The growth of the Internet depends
on users having confidence that the network protects their personal
data [RFC1984]. The possibility of pervasive monitoring and
surveillance undermines users' trust and can be mitigated by ensuring
confidentiality, i.e., passive attackers should gain little or no
information from observation or inference of protocol activity
[RFC7258] [RFC7624].
Example: Protocols that do not encrypt their payload make the entire
content of the communication available to the idealized attacker
along their path. Following the advice in [RFC3365], most such
protocols have a secure variant that encrypts the payload for
confidentiality, and these secure variants are seeing ever-wider
deployment. A noteworthy exception is DNS [RFC1035], as DNSSEC
[RFC4033] does not have confidentiality as a requirement. This
implies that, in the absence of the use of more recent standards like
DNS over TLS [RFC7858] or DNS over HTTPS [RFC8484], all DNS queries
and answers generated by the activities of any protocol are available
to the attacker. When store-and-forward protocols are used (e.g.,
SMTP [RFC5321]), intermediaries leave this data subject to
observation by an attacker that has compromised these intermediaries,
unless the data is encrypted end-to-end by the application-layer
protocol or the implementation uses an encrypted store for this data
[RFC7624].
Impacts:
* Right to privacy
* Right to security
4.13. Security
Question(s): Did you have a look at "Guidelines for Writing RFC Text
on Security Considerations" [RFC3552]? Have you found any attacks
that are somewhat related to your protocol/specification yet
considered out of scope of your document? Would these attacks be
pertinent to the human-rights-enabling features of the Internet (as
described throughout this document)?
Explanation: Security is not a single monolithic property of a
protocol or system but rather a series of related yet somewhat
independent properties. Not all of these properties are required for
every application. Since communications are carried out by systems
and access to systems is through communications channels, security
goals obviously interlock, but they can also be independently
provided [RFC3552].
Typically, any protocol operating on the Internet can be the target
of passive attacks (when the attacker can access and read packets on
the network) and active attacks (when an attacker is capable of
writing information to the network packets) [RFC3552].
Example: See [RFC3552].
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
* Right to non-discrimination
* Right to security
4.14. Privacy
Question(s): Did you have a look at the guidelines described in
Section 7 of "Privacy Considerations for Internet Protocols"
[RFC6973]? Does your protocol maintain the confidentiality of
metadata? Could your protocol counter traffic analysis? Does your
protocol adhere to data minimization principles? Does your document
identify potentially sensitive data logged by your protocol and/or
for how long that needs to be retained for technical reasons?
Explanation: Privacy refers to the right of an entity (normally a
person), acting on its own behalf, to determine the degree to which
it will interact with its environment, including the degree to which
the entity is willing to share its personal information with others
[RFC4949]. If a protocol provides insufficient privacy protection,
it may have a negative impact on freedom of expression as users self-
censor for fear of surveillance or find that they are unable to
express themselves freely.
Example: See [RFC6973].
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to privacy
* Right to non-discrimination
4.15. Anonymity and Pseudonymity
Question(s): Does your protocol make use of identifiers? Are these
identifiers persistent? Are they used across multiple contexts? Is
it possible for the user to reset or rotate them without negatively
impacting the operation of the protocol? Are they visible to others
besides the protocol endpoints? Are they tied to real-world
identities? Have you considered "Privacy Considerations for Internet
Protocols" [RFC6973], especially Section 6.1.2?
Explanation: Most protocols depend on the use of some kind of
identifier in order to correlate activity over time and space. For
instance:
* IP addresses are used as an identity for the source and
destination for IP datagrams.
* QUIC connection identifiers are used to correlate packets
belonging to the same connection.
* HTTP uses cookies to correlate multiple HTTP requests from the
same client.
* Email uses email addresses of the form example@example.com to
identify senders and receivers.
In general, these identifiers serve a necessary function for protocol
operations by allowing them to maintain continuity. However, they
can also create privacy risks. There are two major ways in which
those risks manifest:
* The identifier may itself reveal the user's identity in some way
or be tied to an identifier that does, as is the case when E.164
(telephone) numbers are used as identifiers for instant messaging
systems.
* While the identifier may not reveal the user's identity, it may
make it possible to link enough of a user's behavior to threaten
their privacy, as is the case with HTTP cookies.
Because identifiers are necessary for protocol operation, true
anonymity is very difficult to achieve, but there are practices that
promote user privacy even when identifiers are used.
Impacts:
* Right to non-discrimination
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to political participation
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.15.1. Pseudonymity
In general, user privacy is better preserved when identifiers are
pseudonymous (not tied to a user's real-world identity).
Example: In the development of the IPv6 protocol, it was discussed to
embed a Media Access Control (MAC) address into unique IP addresses.
This would make it possible for eavesdroppers and other information
collectors to identify when different addresses used in different
transactions actually correspond to the same node. This is why
standardization efforts like "Temporary Address Extensions for
Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6" [RFC8981] and MAC
address randomization [MAC-ADDRESS-RANDOMIZATION] have been pursued.
Note that it is often attractive to try to create a pseudonym from a
persistent identifier. This can be very difficult to do correctly in
a way that does not allow for recovering the persistent identifiers.
Example: A common practice in web tracking is to "encrypt" email
addresses by hashing them, thus allegedly making them "non-personally
identifying". However, because hash functions are public operations,
it is possible to do a dictionary search for candidate email
addresses and recover the original address [Email-hashing].
4.15.2. Unlinkability
Even true pseudonymous identifiers can present a privacy risk if they
are used across a wide enough scope. User privacy is better
preserved if identifiers have limited scope both in time and space.
Example: An example is the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
where sending a persistent identifier as the client name was not
mandatory but, in practice, done by many implementations before DHCP
[RFC7844].
Example: Third-party cookies in HTTP allow trackers to correlate HTTP
traffic across sites. This is the foundation of a whole ecosystem of
web tracking. Increasingly, web browsers are restricting the use of
third-party cookies in order to protect user privacy.
4.16. Censorship Resistance
Question(s): Does your protocol architecture facilitate censorship?
Does it include "choke points" that are easy to use for censorship?
Does it expose identifiers that can be used to selectively block
certain kinds of traffic? Could it be designed to be more censorship
resistant? Does your protocol make it apparent or transparent when
access to a resource is restricted and why it is restricted?
Explanation: Governments and service providers block or filter
content or traffic, often without the knowledge of end users
[RFC7754]. For a survey of censorship techniques employed across the
world, see [RFC9505], which lays out protocol properties that have
been exploited to censor access to information. Censorship
resistance refers to the methods and measures to prevent Internet
censorship.
Example: The current design of the Web has a number of architectural
choke points where it is possible for censors to intervene. These
include obtaining the control of the domain name itself, DNS blocking
either at the protocol layer or at the resolver, IP address blocking,
and blocking at the web server. There has been extensive work on
content distribution systems, which are intended to be more
censorship resistant; and some, such as BitTorrent, are in wide use.
However, these systems may have inferior reliability and performance
compared to the Web (e.g., they do not support active content on the
server).
Example: Identifiers of content exposed within a protocol might be
used to facilitate censorship by allowing the censor to determine
which traffic to block. DNS queries, the "host" request header in an
HTTP request, and the Server Name Indication (SNI) in a Transport
Layer Security (TLS) ClientHello are all examples of protocol
elements that can travel in plaintext and be used by censors to
identify what content a user is trying to access [RFC9505]. Protocol
mechanisms such as Encrypted ClientHello [TLS-ESNI] or DNS over HTTPS
[RFC8484] that encrypt metadata provide some level of resistance to
this type of protocol inspection. Full traffic encryption systems,
such as Tor <https://torproject.org>, can also be used by people to
access otherwise censored resources.
Example: As noted above, one way to censor web traffic is to require
the server to block it or require ISPs to block requests to the
server. In HTTP, denial or restriction of access can be made
apparent by the use of status code 451, which allows server operators
and intermediaries to operate with greater transparency in
circumstances where issues of law or public policy affect their
operation [RFC7725]. If a protocol potentially enables censorship,
protocol designers should strive towards creating error codes that
capture different scenarios (e.g., blocked due to administrative
policy, unavailable because of legal requirements, etc.) to minimize
ambiguity for end users.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to political participation
* Right to participate in cultural life, arts, and science
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.17. Outcome Transparency
Question(s): Are the intended and foreseen effects of your protocol
documented and easily comprehensible? Have you described the central
use case(s) for your protocol with a clear description of expected
behavior and how it may, or may not, impact other protocols,
implementations, user expectations, or behavior? Have you reviewed
other protocols that solve similar problems, or made use of similar
mechanisms, to see if there are lessons that can be learned from
their use and misuse?
Explanation: Certain technical choices may have unintended
consequences.
Example: Lack of authenticity may lead to lack of integrity and
negative externalities; of which, spam is an example. Lack of data
that could be used for billing and accounting can lead to so-called
"free" arrangements that obscure the actual costs and distribution of
the costs, for example, the barter arrangements that are commonly
used for Internet interconnection, and the commercial exploitation of
personal data for targeted advertising, which is the most common
funding model for the so-called "free" services such as search
engines and social networks. Unexpected outcomes might not be
technical but rather architectural, social, or economic. Therefore,
it is of importance to document the intended outcomes and other
possible outcomes that have been considered.
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to privacy
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
* Right to access to information
4.18. Accessibility
Question(s): Is your protocol designed to provide an enabling
environment for all? Have you looked at the W3C Web Accessibility
Initiative for examples and guidance [W3CAccessibility]?
Explanation: Sometimes in the design of protocols, websites, web
technologies, or web tools, barriers are created that exclude people
from using the Web. The Internet should be designed to work for all
people, whatever their hardware, software, language, culture,
location, or physical or mental ability. When the Internet
technologies meet this goal, it will be accessible to people with a
diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability
[W3CAccessibility].
Example: The HTML protocol as defined in [HTML] specifically requires
that every image must have an alt attribute (with a few exceptions)
to ensure images are accessible for people who cannot themselves
decipher non-text content in web pages.
Another example is the work done in the AVT and AVTCORE Working
Groups in the IETF that enables text conversation in multimedia, text
telephony, wireless multimedia, and video communications for sign
language and lipreading (i.e., [RFC9071]).
Impacts:
* Right to non-discrimination
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
* Right to education
* Right to political participation
4.19. Decentralization
Question(s): Can your protocol be implemented without a single point
of control? If applicable, can your protocol be deployed in a
federated manner? Does your protocol create additional centralized
points of control?
Explanation: Decentralization is one of the central technical
concepts of the architecture of the Internet and is embraced as such
by the IETF [RFC3935]. It refers to the absence or minimization of
centralized points of control, a feature that is assumed to make it
easy for new users to join and new uses to unfold [Ziewitz]. It also
reduces issues surrounding single points of failure and distributes
the network such that it continues to function even if one or several
nodes are disabled. With the commercialization of the Internet in
the early 1990s, there has been a slow move away from
decentralization, to the detriment of the technical benefits of
having a decentralized Internet. For a more detailed discussion of
this topic, please see [Arkko].
Example: The bits traveling the Internet are increasingly susceptible
to monitoring and censorship from both governments and ISPs as well
as third (malicious) parties. The ability to monitor and censor is
further enabled by the increased centralization of the network that
creates central infrastructure points that can be tapped into. The
creation of peer-to-peer networks and the development of voice-over-
IP protocols using peer-to-peer technology in combination with
Distributed Hash Table (DHT) for scalability are examples of how
protocols can preserve decentralization [Pouwelse].
Impacts:
* Right to freedom of expression
* Right to freedom of assembly and association
4.20. Remedy
Question(s): Can your protocol facilitate a negatively impacted
party's right to remedy without disproportionately impacting other
parties' human rights, especially their right to privacy?
Explanation: Providing access to remedy by states and corporations is
a part of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
[UNGP]. Access to remedy may help victims of human rights violations
in seeking justice or allow law enforcement agencies to identify a
possible violator. However, current mechanisms in protocols that try
to enable "attribution" to individuals impede the exercise of the
right to privacy. The former UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of
Expression has also argued that anonymity is an inherent part of
freedom of expression [Kaye]. Considering the potential adverse
impact of attribution on the right to privacy and freedom of
expression, enabling attribution on an individual level is most
likely not consistent with human rights.
Example: Adding personally identifiable information to data streams
as a means to enable the human right to remedy might help in
identifying a violator of human rights and provide access to remedy,
but this would disproportionately affect all users right to privacy,
anonymous expression, and association. Furthermore, there are some
recent advances in enabling abuse detection in end-to-end encrypted
messaging systems, which also carry some risk to users' privacy
[Messenger-franking] [Hecate].
Impacts:
* Right to remedy
* Right to security
* Right to privacy
4.21. Miscellaneous Considerations
Question(s): Have you considered potential negative consequences
(individual or societal) that your protocol or document might have?
Explanation: Publication of a particular RFC under a certain status
has consequences. Publication as an Internet Standard as part of the
Standards Track may signal to implementers that the specification has
a certain level of maturity, operational experience, and consensus.
Similarly, publication of a specification as an experimental document
not part of the Standards Track would signal to the community that
the document "may not be intended to be an Internet Standard, or it
may be intended for eventual standardization but not yet ready" for
wide deployment [RFC2026]. The extent of the deployment, and
consequently its overall impact on end users, may depend on the
document status presented in the RFC. See [RFC2026] and updates to
it for a fuller explanation.
5. Document Status
This research group document lays out best practices and guidelines
for human rights reviews of network protocols, architectures, and
other Internet-Drafts and RFCs.
6. Security Considerations
Article three of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" reads:
"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person"
[UDHR]. This article underlines the importance of security and its
interrelation with human life and liberty; but since human rights are
indivisible, interrelated, and interdependent, security is also
closely linked to other human rights and freedoms. This document
seeks to strengthen human rights, freedoms, and security by relating
and translating these concepts to concepts and practices as they are
used in Internet protocol and architecture development. The aim of
this is to secure human rights and thereby improve the
sustainability, usability, and effectiveness of the network. The
document seeks to achieve this by providing guidelines as done in
Section 3 of this document.
7. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
8. Research Group Information
The discussion list for the IRTF Human Rights Protocol Considerations
Research Group is located at the e-mail address:
<mailto:hrpc@ietf.org>.
Information on the group and information on how to subscribe to the
list is at: <https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/hrpc>.
Archives of the list can be found at:
<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/hrpc/>.
9. Informative References
[Arkko] Arkko, J., Trammell, B., Nottingham, M., Huitema, C.,
Thomson, M., Tantsura, J., and N. ten Oever,
"Considerations on Internet Consolidation and the Internet
Architecture", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
arkko-iab-internet-consolidation-02, 8 July 2019,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-arkko-iab-
internet-consolidation-02>.
[Email-hashing]
Acar, G., Englehardt, S., and A. Narayanan, "Four cents to
deanonymize: Companies reverse hashed email addresses",
April 2018, <https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2018/04/09/
four-cents-to-deanonymize-companies-reverse-hashed-email-
addresses/>.
[FIArch] Papadimitriou, D., Zahariadis, T., Martinez-Julia, P.,
Papafili, I., Morreale, V., Torelli, F., Sales, B., and P.
Demeester, "Design Principles for the Future Internet
Architecture", The Future Internet, pp. 55-67,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-30241-1_6, January 2012,
<https://link.springer.com/
chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-30241-1_6>.
[FREAK] University of Michigan, "Tracking the FREAK Attack",
Wayback Machine archive, March 2015,
<https://web.archive.org/web/20150304002021/
https://freakattack.com/>.
[Hecate] Issa, R., Alhaddad, N., and M. Varia, "Hecate, Abuse
Reporting in Secure Messengers with Sealed Sender", 31st
USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 22), pp
2335-2352, August 2022,
<https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity22/
presentation/issa>.
[Hill] Hill, R., "Partial Catalog of Human Rights Related to ICT
Activities", May 2014,
<http://www.apig.ch/UNIGE%20Catalog.pdf>.
[HR-RT] "IRTF-HRPC / reviews", commit 3f5fbff, December 2020,
<https://github.com/IRTF-HRPC/reviews>.
[HTML] WHATWG, "HTML Living Standard", August 2024,
<https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/>.
[HTTPS-interception]
Durumeric, Z., Ma, Z., Springall, D., Barnes, R.,
Sullivan, N., Bursztein, E., Bailey, M., Halderman, J.,
and V. Paxson, "The Security Impact of HTTPS
Interception", NDSS Symposium 2017,
DOI 10.14722/ndss.2017.23456, February 2017,
<https://doi.org/10.14722/ndss.2017.23456>.
[ICCPR] United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights", December 1966,
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-
mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-
political-rights>.
[ICESCR] United Nations General Assembly, "International Covenant
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights", December 1966,
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-
mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-
social-and-cultural-rights>.
[IRP] Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition, "10
Internet Rights & Principles",
<https://internetrightsandprinciples.org/campaign/>.
[Jorgensen]
Jørgensen, R. F., "An internet bill of rights", Research
Handbook on Governance of the Internet, edited by Ian
Brown. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing,
DOI 10.4337/9781849805025.00022, April 2013,
<https://doi.org/10.4337/9781849805025.00022>.
[Kaye] Kaye, D., "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the
Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of
Opinion and Expression, David Kaye", A/HRC/29/32, May
2015, <https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/798709?v=pdf>.
[Logjam] Adrian, D., Bhargavan, K., Durumeric, Z., Gaudry, P.,
Green, M., Halderman, J., Heninger, N., Springall, D.,
Thomé, E., Valenta, L., VanderSloot, B., Wustrow, E.,
Zanella-Béguelin, S., and P. Zimmerman, "Imperfect Forward
Secrecy: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice", CCS '15:
Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer
and Communications Security, pp 5-17,
DOI 10.1145/2810103.2813707, October 2015,
<https://doi.org/10.1145/2810103.2813707>.
[MAC-ADDRESS-RANDOMIZATION]
Zúñiga, J. C., Bernardos, C. J., Ed., and A. Andersdotter,
"Randomized and Changing MAC Address State of Affairs",
Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-madinas-mac-
address-randomization-15, 15 July 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-madinas-
mac-address-randomization-15>.
[Messenger-franking]
Grubbs, P., Lu, J., and T. Ristenpart, "Message Franking
via Committing Authenticated Encryption", Cryptology
ePrint Archive, Paper 2017/664, July 2017,
<https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/664>.
[Newegg] Mullin, J., "Newegg on trial: Mystery company TQP rewrites
the history of encryption", Ars Technica, November 2013,
<https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/newegg-on-
trial-mystery-company-tqp-re-writes-the-history-of-
encryption/>.
[Note-well]
IETF, "Note Well",
<https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/>.
[Orwat] Orwat, C. and R. Bless, "Values and Networks: Steps Toward
Exploring their Relationships", ACM SIGCOMM Computer
Communication Review, vol. 46, no. 2, pp 25-31,
DOI 10.1145/2935634.2935640, May 2016,
<https://doi.org/10.1145/2935634.2935640>.
[Patent-policy]
Weitzner, D., "W3C Patent Policy", W3C Recommendation,
February 2004,
<https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/>.
[Penney] Penney, J., "Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and
Wikipedia Use", Berkeley Technology Law Journal, vol. 31,
no. 1, pp 117-182, DOI 10.15779/Z38SS13, September 2016,
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/
papers.cfm?abstract_id=2769645>.
[Pouwelse] Pouwelse, J., Ed., "Media without censorship (CensorFree)
scenarios", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
pouwelse-censorfree-scenarios-02, 22 October 2012,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-pouwelse-
censorfree-scenarios-02>.
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
November 1987, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.
[RFC1958] Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1958>.
[RFC1984] IAB and IESG, "IAB and IESG Statement on Cryptographic
Technology and the Internet", BCP 200, RFC 1984,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1984, August 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1984>.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.
[RFC2277] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and
Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, DOI 10.17487/RFC2277,
January 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2277>.
[RFC3365] Schiller, J., "Strong Security Requirements for Internet
Engineering Task Force Standard Protocols", BCP 61,
RFC 3365, DOI 10.17487/RFC3365, August 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3365>.
[RFC3552] Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3552, July 2003,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3552>.
[RFC3724] Kempf, J., Ed., Austein, R., Ed., and IAB, "The Rise of
the Middle and the Future of End-to-End: Reflections on
the Evolution of the Internet Architecture", RFC 3724,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3724, March 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3724>.
[RFC3935] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF",
BCP 95, RFC 3935, DOI 10.17487/RFC3935, October 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3935>.
[RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements",
RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4033>.
[RFC4101] Rescorla, E. and IAB, "Writing Protocol Models", RFC 4101,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4101, June 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4101>.
[RFC4949] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2",
FYI 36, RFC 4949, DOI 10.17487/RFC4949, August 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4949>.
[RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5321, October 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5321>.
[RFC5646] Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., "Tags for Identifying
Languages", BCP 47, RFC 5646, DOI 10.17487/RFC5646,
September 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5646>.
[RFC6108] Chung, C., Kasyanov, A., Livingood, J., Mody, N., and B.
Van Lieu, "Comcast's Web Notification System Design",
RFC 6108, DOI 10.17487/RFC6108, February 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6108>.
[RFC6365] Hoffman, P. and J. Klensin, "Terminology Used in
Internationalization in the IETF", BCP 166, RFC 6365,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6365, September 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6365>.
[RFC6701] Farrel, A. and P. Resnick, "Sanctions Available for
Application to Violators of IETF IPR Policy", RFC 6701,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6701, August 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6701>.
[RFC6973] Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6973>.
[RFC7258] Farrell, S. and H. Tschofenig, "Pervasive Monitoring Is an
Attack", BCP 188, RFC 7258, DOI 10.17487/RFC7258, May
2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7258>.
[RFC7301] Friedl, S., Popov, A., Langley, A., and E. Stephan,
"Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol
Negotiation Extension", RFC 7301, DOI 10.17487/RFC7301,
July 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7301>.
[RFC7624] Barnes, R., Schneier, B., Jennings, C., Hardie, T.,
Trammell, B., Huitema, C., and D. Borkmann,
"Confidentiality in the Face of Pervasive Surveillance: A
Threat Model and Problem Statement", RFC 7624,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7624, August 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7624>.
[RFC7725] Bray, T., "An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles",
RFC 7725, DOI 10.17487/RFC7725, February 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7725>.
[RFC7754] Barnes, R., Cooper, A., Kolkman, O., Thaler, D., and E.
Nordmark, "Technical Considerations for Internet Service
Blocking and Filtering", RFC 7754, DOI 10.17487/RFC7754,
March 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7754>.
[RFC7844] Huitema, C., Mrugalski, T., and S. Krishnan, "Anonymity
Profiles for DHCP Clients", RFC 7844,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7844, May 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7844>.
[RFC7858] Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7858>.
[RFC8179] Bradner, S. and J. Contreras, "Intellectual Property
Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 8179,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8179, May 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8179>.
[RFC8280] ten Oever, N. and C. Cath, "Research into Human Rights
Protocol Considerations", RFC 8280, DOI 10.17487/RFC8280,
October 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8280>.
[RFC8446] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.
[RFC8484] Hoffman, P. and P. McManus, "DNS Queries over HTTPS
(DoH)", RFC 8484, DOI 10.17487/RFC8484, October 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8484>.
[RFC8558] Hardie, T., Ed., "Transport Protocol Path Signals",
RFC 8558, DOI 10.17487/RFC8558, April 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8558>.
[RFC8890] Nottingham, M., "The Internet is for End Users", RFC 8890,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8890, August 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8890>.
[RFC8980] Arkko, J. and T. Hardie, "Report from the IAB Workshop on
Design Expectations vs. Deployment Reality in Protocol
Development", RFC 8980, DOI 10.17487/RFC8980, February
2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8980>.
[RFC8981] Gont, F., Krishnan, S., Narten, T., and R. Draves,
"Temporary Address Extensions for Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration in IPv6", RFC 8981,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8981, February 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8981>.
[RFC9000] Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9000>.
[RFC9071] Hellström, G., "RTP-Mixer Formatting of Multiparty Real-
Time Text", RFC 9071, DOI 10.17487/RFC9071, July 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9071>.
[RFC9293] Eddy, W., Ed., "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)",
STD 7, RFC 9293, DOI 10.17487/RFC9293, August 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9293>.
[RFC9420] Barnes, R., Beurdouche, B., Robert, R., Millican, J.,
Omara, E., and K. Cohn-Gordon, "The Messaging Layer
Security (MLS) Protocol", RFC 9420, DOI 10.17487/RFC9420,
July 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9420>.
[RFC9505] Hall, J. L., Aaron, M. D., Andersdotter, A., Jones, B.,
Feamster, N., and M. Knodel, "A Survey of Worldwide
Censorship Techniques", RFC 9505, DOI 10.17487/RFC9505,
November 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9505>.
[Saltzer] Saltzer, J. H., Reed, D. P., and D. D. Clark, "End-to-end
arguments in system design", ACM Transactions on Computer
Systems, vol. 2, no. 4, pp 277-288,
DOI 10.1145/357401.357402, November 1984,
<https://doi.org/10.1145/357401.357402>.
[TLS-ESNI] Rescorla, E., Oku, K., Sullivan, N., and C. A. Wood, "TLS
Encrypted Client Hello", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-tls-esni-20, 4 August 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-tls-
esni-20>.
[UDHR] United Nations General Assembly, "Universal Declaration of
Human Rights", December 1948, <https://www.un.org/en/
about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights>.
[UNGP] United Nations, "Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights: Implementing the United Nations 'Protect, Respect
and Remedy' Framework", January 2012,
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/publications/reference-
publications/guiding-principles-business-and-human-
rights>.
[UNHR] United Nations, "The Core International Human Rights
Instruments and their monitoring bodies",
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/core-international-human-rights-
instruments-and-their-monitoring-bodies>.
[UNHRC2016]
United Nations Human Rights Council, "The promotion,
protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet",
A/HRC/32/L.20, June 2016,
<https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/845728?ln=en>.
[W3CAccessibility]
W3C, "Accessibility",
<https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility>.
[W3Ci18nDef]
Ishida, R. and S. Miller, "Localization vs.
Internationalization", December 2005,
<https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-i18n.en>.
[Ziewitz] Ziewitz, M. and I. Brown, "A Prehistory of Internet
Governance", Research Handbook on Governance of the
Internet, edited by Ian Brown. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
Publishing, DOI 10.4337/9781849805025.00008, April 2013,
<https://doi.org/10.4337/9781849805025.00008>.
[Zittrain] Zittrain, J., "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop
It", Yale University Press, 2008,
<https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/4455262>.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to:
* Corinne Cath-Speth for work on [RFC8280].
* Reese Enghardt, Joe Hall, Avri Doria, Joey Salazar, Corinne Cath-
Speth, Farzaneh Badii, Sandra Braman, Colin Perkins, John Curran,
Eliot Lear, Mallory Knodel, Brian Trammell, Jane Coffin, Eric
Rescorla, Sofía Celi, and the hrpc list for reviews and
suggestions.
* Individuals who conducted human rights reviews for their work and
feedback: Amelia Andersdotter, Shane Kerr, Beatrice Martini, Karan
Saini, and Shivan Kaul Sahib.
Authors' Addresses
Gurshabad Grover
Email: gurshabad@cis-india.org
Niels ten Oever
University of Amsterdam
Email: mail@nielstenoever.net
