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Voice over Internet Services and Privacy

Voice over Internet Services and Privacy. Agenda. Problem Description Scope Recommendations. Problem Description. Skype spying on users Academic paper . Press article in English Press article in German Weak/broken security Blog post about WhatsApp

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Voice over Internet Services and Privacy

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  1. Voice over Internet Services and Privacy

  2. Agenda • Problem Description • Scope • Recommendations

  3. Problem Description • Skype spying on users • Academic paper. • Press article in English • Press article in German • Weak/broken security • Blog post about WhatsApp • Cryptocat: German article / English article • Government surveillance • XKeyscore

  4. Introduction to Communication Protocols • Alice & Bob register with application server. • Alice wants to call Bob. • Signaling message travels to server • Server does a lookup on Bob’s current IP address. • Server sends signaling msg to Bob. • Alice and Bob exchange data traffic.

  5. What route does data take? • What data? • Voice, video, real-time text, text, data • Routing: • “Directly” between the two endpoints • Example: ICE use with XMPP Jingle • Via application servers • Example: Regular XMPP instance messaging • Via some other servers • TURN relays, VPN overlays,Onion routing network • In general, an application provider can influence data path routing.

  6. Extending Basic ScenarioInterconnection Common scenario for VoIP-PSTN interworking.

  7. Typical Questions • What technology is used by the two providers? • What interconnection technology is used? • How many intermediaries are along the path? • What do the intermediaries get to see? (signaling only? Data as well?)

  8. Outsourcing the Identity Provider WebRTC-based JavaScript APIs

  9. Security & Privacy • Protect signaling traffic (hop-by-hop) • Protect data traffic (end-to-end) • Convey identity information (or hide it)

  10. Protect Signaling Traffic • Server-to-Server: • Use TLS (or IPsec) with mutual authentication between servers. • End device-to-Server: • Use server-side authenticated TLS between end device and application server. • Various user authentication techniques deployed. • Protects against eavesdroppers on the wire. • Does not protect against application servers collecting data about user behavior.

  11. Protect Data Traffic • Depends on the assumptions of who to trust and the anticipated capability of the adversary. • There are also challenges in the interworking with existing technologies. • Examples: • ZRTP assumes that calling parties recognize their voice. • DTLS-SRTP assumes that SIP identity protects the fingerprints. • A summary of the requirements and use cases can be found in RFC 5479.

  12. Convey or Hide Identity Information • In the context of VoIP this typically means the calling party identifier (phone number or URI) + contact information. • Two approaches have been developed: • Chain of Trust approach (e.g., P-Asserted-Identity) • Cryptographic approach (e.g., SIP Identity) • Various problems surfaced with the chain of trust approach (which is also used in today’s telephone system) with caller-id spoofing and telephony denial of service attacks. • A more detailed discussion of the topic can be found here.

  13. Recommendations(To VSPs) • Transparency about the Data Collection and Use • What information is collected by whom and for what purpose? What is the retention period? • User Participation • What are the controls for users to control sharing with other users and with intermediaries? e.g., identity information • Ability to review and revoke access to camera, microphone, etc. • Security • Mandatory security for signaling traffic • Mandatory E2E security for data traffic? • Perfect forward secrecy to avoid future compromise? • Protection against unauthorized access • Regular software updates to address vulnerabilities • Privacy-friendly defaults

  14. Recommendations, cont.(To VSPs) • Re-use open standards / open source that enjoyed wider community review ( transparency) • Allow users to choose their identity provider ( competition and choice) • Offer federated use and data portability ( competition and choice) • Preference for cryptographic identity conveyance ( misattribution & intrusion) • Offer capabilities for direct exchange of data ( data minimization)

  15. Recommendations(To Users) • Select application providers operating in jurisdictions you feel comfortable with ( applicable data protection laws)

  16. Final Remarks • Are these recommendations detailed enough? • What is the likelihood that those recommendations will be considered by VSPs? • Should we provide recommendations to other parties as well? (e.g., open source developers, standardization organizations) • How to support innovation in the application space?

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