Internet Surveillance and Boomerang Routing: A Call for Canadian Network Sovereignty

Mon Sep 9 15:22:42 UTC 2013

I'm confident that someone else may point this out, but I feel this is important enough to weigh in on .. Respectfully, I must disagree with any philosophy that perpetuates the archaic concept of political boundaries in the context of information flow. 

Calling it "stupid" to send traffic on any particular route because that route crosses political boundaries reflects a surrender to an old way of thought. While I can agree that the fact of crossing political boundaries introduces a very unwelcome artifact of exposing that traffic to adverse political effects, that doesn't mean that the desirable response is one of returning to nationalistic silos. Instead, the way forward is to protect the traffic rather than the boundaries. 

Due to political realities, that may indeed mean that a intra-national backup path is necessary. But to my mind, what's "just not good Internet" is the artificial restriction of traffic to solely intra-national primary paths. That mindset reflects a territoriality that's not our friend; I still dream of a fully interconnected world. 

So, I respectfully suggest that we work on fixing the problems and vulnerabilities that arise from the interconnectedness rather than hunkering down and fragmenting / forking. Yes, these are shameful and terrible problems that have come to our attention right now; still, we can move forward better together than apart, don't you think?

..Allen

On Sep 9, 2013, at 10:43, Jason Lixfeld <jason at lixfeld.ca> wrote:

> That notwithstanding, it's stupid to send traffic to/from one of the large $your_region/country incumbents via $not_your_region/country.  It's just not good Internet.  You make enough money already.  Be a good netizen.  It pays more in the long run and that's all you're really after for your shareholders anyway, right?
> 
> On 2013-09-08, at 11:54 AM, Derek Andrew <Derek.Andrew at usask.ca> wrote:
> 
>> The topic of Canadian network sovereignty has been part of the Canadian
>> conscience since the failure of CANNET back in the 1970s.
>> 
>> Canadians citizens, on Canadian soil, already supply feeds directly to the
>> NSA. Rerouting Internet traffic would make no difference.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 3:08 PM, Paul Ferguson <fergdawgster at mykolab.com>wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> A Canadian ISP colleague of mine suggested that the NANOG constituency
>>> might be interested in this, given some recent 'revelations', so I
>>> forward it here for you perusal.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> "Preliminary analysis of more than 25,000 traceroutes reveals a
>>> phenomenon we call ‘boomerang routing’ whereby Canadian-to-Canadian
>>> internet transmissions are routinely routed through the United States.
>>> Canadian originated transmissions that travel to a Canadian destination
>>> via a U.S. switching centre or carrier are subject to U.S. law -
>>> including the USA Patriot Act and FISAA. As a result, these
>>> transmissions expose Canadians to potential U.S. surveillance activities
>>> – a violation of Canadian network sovereignty."
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/media_law_prof_blog/2013/09/routing-internet-transmission-across-the-canada-us-border-and-us-surveillance-activities.html
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> 
>>> - ferg
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Paul Ferguson
>>> Vice President, Threat Intelligence
>>> Internet Identity, Tacoma, Washington  USA
>>> IID --> "Connect and Collaborate" --> www.internetidentity.com
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Copyright 2013 Derek Andrew (excluding quotations)
>> 
>> +1 306 966 4808
>> Information and Communications Technology
>> University of Saskatchewan
>> Peterson 120; 54 Innovation Boulevard
>> Saskatoon,Saskatchewan,Canada. S7N 2V3
>> Timezone GMT-6
>> 
>> Typed but not read.
> 
> 