FC: IETF considers building wiretapping into the Internet

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,31853,00.html

                     Wiretapping the Net: Oh, Brother
                     by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

                     2:00 p.m. 12.Oct.99.PDT
                     Since its humble beginnings as a
                     15-person committee in 1986, the
                     Internet Engineering Task Force has had
                     one guiding principle: To solve the
                     problems of moving digital information
                     around the world. 

                     As attendance at meetings swelled and
                     the Internet became a vital portion of
                     national economies, the
                     standards-setting body has become
                     increasingly important, but the engineers
                     and programmers who are members
                     remained focused on that common goal. 

                     No longer. 

                     The IETF is now debating whether to wire
                     government surveillance into the next
                     generation of Internet protocols. The
                     issue promises to cause the most
                     acrimonious debate the venerable group
                     has ever experienced and could have a
                     lasting effect on privacy online. 

                     To reach even a preliminary decision in a
                     special plenary session of the IETF
                     meeting in Washington next month,
                     attendees must weigh whether law
                     enforcement demands are more important
                     than communications security and
                     personal privacy -- a process that places
                     technology professionals in the unusual
                     position of taking a prominent political
                     stand. 

                     "As Internet voice becomes a wider
                     deployed reality, it is only logical that the
                     subject has to come up," IETF chairman
                     Fred Baker said. "We are deciding to bring
                     it up proactively rather than reacting to
                     something later in the game." 

                     [...]


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