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(The document does seem to have the reference to RFC 2119 which the ID-Checklist requires). == Using lowercase 'not' together with uppercase 'MUST', 'SHALL', 'SHOULD', or 'RECOMMENDED' is not an accepted usage according to RFC 2119. Please use uppercase 'NOT' together with RFC 2119 keywords (if that is what you mean). Found 'MUST not' in this paragraph: The RIGHT element MAY have an attribute named "prepaid", which contains an opaque token. The token SHOULD be a Base64 string [4]. The attribute MUST not processed, if the token does exceed the Base64 charset. It MAY even check, if the token is really a Base64 encoding. == Using lowercase 'not' together with uppercase 'MUST', 'SHALL', 'SHOULD', or 'RECOMMENDED' is not an accepted usage according to RFC 2119. Please use uppercase 'NOT' together with RFC 2119 keywords (if that is what you mean). Found 'MUST not' in this paragraph: The RIGHT element MAY have an attribute named "drm", which contains an opaque token. The token SHOULD be a Base64 string [4]. The attribute MUST not processed, if the token does exceed the Base64 charset. It MAY even check, if the token is really a Base64 encoding. -- The document date (June 27, 2018) is 2129 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Experimental ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ** Obsolete normative reference: RFC 793 (ref. '1') (Obsoleted by RFC 9293) Summary: 1 error (**), 0 flaws (~~), 4 warnings (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Internet Engineering Task Force L. Donnerhacke 3 Internet-Draft Fitug e.V. 4 Intended status: Experimental June 27, 2018 5 Expires: December 29, 2018 7 Rights for restricted content 8 draft-donnerhacke-linktax-01 10 Abstract 12 Links are omnipresent in the Internet to provide access to other 13 resources. There is no mechanism to express differences in law 14 systems, access limitations, or arbitrary rules defined by the owner 15 of the linked resource. Therefore links do depend on and enforce a 16 communist sharing ideology, which ignores the content owner rights. 18 Links may point to resources far away from the originating page, 19 hiding this fact from the customer. It takes the data transport 20 services for free, internet transit providers on the way from the 21 content source to the customers are not extra payed for this effort. 22 In many cases, the remote company generates huge amount of money from 23 the customers worldwide not shared with the transit providers. 25 In order to get the rights of all involved parties balanced, a new 26 type of connection initiation is proposed: The Right. 28 Status of This Memo 30 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 31 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 33 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 34 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 35 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 36 Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 38 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 39 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 40 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 41 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 43 This Internet-Draft will expire on December 29, 2018. 45 Copyright Notice 47 Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 48 document authors. All rights reserved. 50 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 51 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 52 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 53 publication of this document. Please review these documents 54 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 55 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 56 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 57 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 58 described in the Simplified BSD License. 60 Table of Contents 62 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 63 1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 64 1.2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 65 2. Referencing restricted content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 66 2.1. The RIGHT element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 67 2.2. Monetization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 68 2.2.1. Prepaid references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 69 2.2.2. Pay per use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 70 2.3. Digital Rights Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 71 3. Compensate transit providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 72 3.1. Routing Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 73 3.2. Option Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 74 3.3. Offering services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 75 3.4. Accepting offers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 76 4. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 77 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 78 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 79 7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 80 7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 81 7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 82 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 84 1. Introduction 86 The current Internet is best described by the famous quote "From each 87 according to his ability, to each according to his needs" by Karl 88 Marx [13]. In the Internet everybody provides its resources for the 89 use by anybody else. This is the basic concept behind the hyperlink. 90 For the purpose of this memo the concept is called "Left-Wing". 92 On the other hand the concept of intellectual property requires to 93 have a contractual relationship before use of the requested resource. 94 In order to fulfil the needs of the intellectual property industry, 95 additional elements needs to be implemented in the Internet. For the 96 purpose of this memo the concept is called "Right-Wing". 98 Using the mechanisms defined in this memo, content owners can decide 99 the model of access to their property. They are free to choose new 100 mechanisms and monetize their content, or to keep in line with open 101 and free Internet by using the old mechanisms. 103 1.1. Background 105 The idea of a link tax is commonly attributed to the German publisher 106 "Axel Springer". They claim that "Links" can't be free and that the 107 Internet is a "Rechts-freier Raum" (lawless space). To overcome this 108 situation, they invented the "Leistungsschutzrecht", which in turn is 109 the founding of the EU proposal [11]. 111 Implementing this memo will satisfy all those "Right-Wing" claims: 113 The new element is called "right" ("rechts" in German), so 114 Internet is no longer a "Rechts-freier Raum". 116 They can choose to monetize their content by using the "right" 117 instead of the "link" element. If they are using "link", they 118 agree to not sue anybody over the use of the resource. 120 If they choose "right", they can limit the amount of usage of the 121 reference. This way the can obtain money from the reverencing 122 page (i.e. a news aggregator). 124 If they choose "right", they even can limit the usage of the 125 content itself. They can prevent i.e. printing or sharing by the 126 customer. 128 Furthermore they can speed up their content delivery substantially by 129 paying the transit and access providers for a higher level of service 130 quality. This way the net neutrality of the "Left-Wing" needs not to 131 be touched. 133 1.2. Requirements Language 135 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 136 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 137 memo are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [10]. 139 2. Referencing restricted content 141 References to remote content are done by "links" in the "Left-Wing" 142 universe. The only relevant environment for links for the purposes 143 of this memo is the World Wide Web. There the "link" is represented 144 by the element [8] or the element [9]. 146 2.1. The RIGHT element 148 The new element is a modification of the existing 149 element [8]. It differs from the former by the retrieval method used 150 by the client browser, and two additional attributes. 152 When accessing the referenced resource of the RIGHT element, the 153 browser MUST initiate the connection using the TCP options described 154 in Section 3. 156 2.2. Monetization 158 Wenn referencing a resource one of the following monetization methods 159 MUST be used. The methods are mutually exclusive. 161 2.2.1. Prepaid references 163 The RIGHT element MAY have an attribute named "prepaid", which 164 contains an opaque token. The token SHOULD be a Base64 string [4]. 165 The attribute MUST not processed, if the token does exceed the Base64 166 charset. It MAY even check, if the token is really a Base64 167 encoding. 169 Any valid token MUST be copied to a new HTTP header line "Right: 170 prepaid=token" when requesting the referenced resource. If the 171 attribute does not exist or is invalid, the line SHOULD be omitted. 173 The resource provider MAY use this token to validate, that the 174 resource was legally requested. If the token is invalid, it MAY 175 respond with the error code 402. It MUST NOT respond with error code 176 451 [7]. 178 The resource provider MUST provide an API, where new tokens can be 179 obtained. Access to the API SHOULD be limited to paying contractors 180 and SHOULD offer tokens which are valid for a larger amount of 181 requests and MAY time out. 183 This is the prefered method for link aggregators and search engines, 184 which make money from referencing third party content. It can also 185 be used, if the referencing page owner want to avoid payment hussle 186 for the customer. 188 2.2.2. Pay per use 190 The RIGHT element MAY have a couple of attributes, which instruct the 191 browser to process the necessary payment before accessing the 192 resource. 194 The attribute "payment" contains a URI [2] denoting the clearing 195 point for the transaction and the destination of the payment. This 196 memo does not define any methods, but an it might look like 197 "microico:123456..def" or "https://micro.pay.me.example/@company/ 198 AxelSpringer". The payment API MUST return a proof of payment (PoP) 199 value on success. The PoP value MUST NOT exceed the Base64 charset 200 [4]. 202 The attribute "currency" contains a string to be used by the payment 203 API. It SHOULD donate a well defined abbreviation for the currency. 205 The attribute "view" contains a numerical value. The browser MUST 206 NOT render the RIGHT element, without successfully paying the denoted 207 amount of currency via the payment API. It MIGHT cache this result 208 for later use to avoid multiple spendings for the same content. 210 The attribute "click" contains a numerical value. The browser MUST 211 add the a header line "Right: click=PoP" when requesting the 212 referenced resource. The PoP is the proof of payment value from 213 payment of the denoted amount of currency. The resource provider MAY 214 use this value to validate, that the resource was payed. If the 215 token is invalid, it MAY respond with the error code 402. It MUST 216 NOT respond with error code 451 [7]. 218 At least one of the attributes "view" or "click", as well as the 219 attributes "payment" and "currency" MUST be present for this method. 221 This is the prefered method for referencing restricted content from 222 pages providing own content. 224 2.3. Digital Rights Management 226 The RIGHT element MAY have an attribute named "drm", which contains 227 an opaque token. The token SHOULD be a Base64 string [4]. The 228 attribute MUST not processed, if the token does exceed the Base64 229 charset. It MAY even check, if the token is really a Base64 230 encoding. 232 Any valid token MUST be handed over to the local DRM software used to 233 process the content of the resource. The details of the API and the 234 processing inside the DRM software is out of the scope of this memo. 236 3. Compensate transit providers 238 3.1. Routing Considerations 240 Traffic from the resource provider to the client (and back) travels 241 through the Internet by passing from one internet carrier to the next 242 one until it reaches the destination. The internet carriers are 243 interconnected by each other through dedicated peerings. At such a 244 peering, the networks of the carriers talk directly to each other. 245 The network of a carrier itself are summarized by an Autonomous 246 System Number [3]. 248 There is no guarantee, that the packets travel the same way all the 249 time. Traffic in one direction may touch completely different 250 providers, than on the way back. The traffic can be rerouted if 251 necessary, even if the TCP session is still up. So it is difficult 252 to compensate the involved carriers, simply because they may change 253 at any time. 255 3.2. Option Format 257 In order to track the route of carriers involved, a new TCP option is 258 defined. It contains an arbitrary amount of 32 bit ASN / Payload 259 pairs. 261 0 1 2 3 262 01234567 89012345 67890123 45678901 263 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 264 | Kind | Length | ExID | 265 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 266 | ASN-1 | 267 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 268 | Payload-1 | 269 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 270 ... 271 | ASN-n | 272 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 273 | Payload-n | 274 +--------+--------+--------+--------+ 276 Figure 1: Autonomous System Compensation Option 278 Kind: The option kind value is 253. 280 Length: The length of the option is variable, based on the required 281 size of the content. The size will be a multiple of 4. 283 ExID: The experiment ID value is 0x0a0d (2573). 285 ASN: 32 bit value of the Autonomous System Number. 287 Payload: A 32 bit opaque value. 289 The option space in the TCP header is limited to eleven 32 bit words 290 [1]. So no more than five ASN / Payload pairs can be included. The 291 number might be lower, if other TCP options are present. 293 The option is defined to exist only in packets with the SYN flag set. 294 It SHOULD NOT occur in data only packets, hence the MSS is not 295 changed. For TCP fast open [6], the size of the initial segment 296 needs to be adjusted. 298 3.3. Offering services 300 In order request a resource according to Section 2.1, the client 301 opens a new TCP connection with the SYN flag set and the ACK flag 302 cleared [1] and MUST add an empty ASN option as defined in 303 Section 3.2. 305 Any ASN MAY offer a special service to the content provider by 306 appending its own ASN to the end. The payload contains a 307 contractually defined value, i.e. a challenge with nonce bits, which 308 will be processed by the content provider. The list of offers MUST 309 NOT be deleted or reordered. 311 If there is no contract between the carrier and the content provider, 312 the special payload "0" CAN be used. This means, that the carrier 313 want to negotiate a contract. If those negotiation fails after a 314 reasonable period of time, the carrier MAY drop such packets. In 315 this case, it MUST respond with a appropriate, rate-limited ICMP 316 error message. 318 If the carrier adds an offer to the list, it MUST keep the routing 319 decision stable and always route the following packets of this flow 320 to the same ASN as the initial packet. Furthermore it MUST route all 321 the response packets of this flow to the ASN which was last one in 322 the list. 324 If the option space is full, the carrier MUST NOT add an offer to the 325 list. This way the access providers have a first opportunity to 326 place an offer, fulfilling their request to compensate the broadband 327 access costs. 329 3.4. Accepting offers 331 Any new connection containing this ASN option, MUST be signalled to 332 the application level. Processing of any of the payment headers as 333 defined in Section 2.2 MUST be suppressed unless the application got 334 this signal. This way normal "links" are processed as usual, while 335 "rights" can be handled correctly. 337 On receiving the initial packet at the final destination, the option 338 values are examined. For each OFFER the payload MUST be replaced by 339 the contractually defined, computed response. The list MUST NOT be 340 reordered. If an offer is rejected, the payload is set to "0". So 341 the TCP syn/ack packet contains a ASN option with all the acceptance 342 values. 344 On the way back each ASN, which put in an offer, examines the option, 345 it MUST remove the last item from the ASN option list, if AS number 346 matches. Depending on the response to the offer, the TCP flow SHOULD 347 be handled accordingly to the contractual requirements. 349 The carrier has to route according to the stored flow context, but 350 there are any problems, it SHOULD route toward the last ASN in the 351 option. 353 4. Acknowledgements 355 This memo is influenced by the legislative process in the EU [11]. 356 Special thanks go to Julia Reda [12] for keeping the public updated. 357 The basic idea was contributed by Bernd Paysan. 359 5. IANA Considerations 361 This memo adds an TCP ExID into the IANA registry 362 according the the rules of RFC 6994 [5]. 365 +--------+--------------------------------+ 366 | Value | Description | 367 +--------+--------------------------------+ 368 | 0x0a0d | Autonomous System Compensation | 369 +--------+--------------------------------+ 371 6. Security Considerations 373 Filtering the TCP option on intermediate devices might render the 374 resource in question unreachable. 376 The TCP option is designed to implement a challenge response 377 mechanism, which should withstand a MITM attack. All details of such 378 a mechanism are out of the scope of this memo. 380 Attribute values might be copied from a document and reused 381 elsewhere. This might result in theft of access rights and should be 382 prevented by appropriate actions (i.e. checking Referer, Cookies). 384 7. References 386 7.1. Normative References 388 [1] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, 389 RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981, 390 . 392 [2] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform 393 Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, 394 RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005, 395 . 397 [3] Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A 398 Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, 399 DOI 10.17487/RFC4271, January 2006, 400 . 402 [4] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data 403 Encodings", RFC 4648, DOI 10.17487/RFC4648, October 2006, 404 . 406 [5] Touch, J., "Shared Use of Experimental TCP Options", 407 RFC 6994, DOI 10.17487/RFC6994, August 2013, 408 . 410 [6] Cheng, Y., Chu, J., Radhakrishnan, S., and A. Jain, "TCP 411 Fast Open", RFC 7413, DOI 10.17487/RFC7413, December 2014, 412 . 414 [7] Bray, T., "An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles", 415 RFC 7725, DOI 10.17487/RFC7725, February 2016, 416 . 418 [8] World Wide Web Consortium, "The link element", 2018, 419 . 422 [9] World Wide Web Consortium, "The a element", 2018, 423 . 426 7.2. Informative References 428 [10] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 429 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, 430 DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, 431 . 433 [11] EUROPEAN COMMISSION, "Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE 434 EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on copyright in the 435 Digital Single Market", 2016, . 438 [12] Reda, J., "Homepage", . 440 [13] Marx, K., "Kritik des Gothaer Programms", 1875. 442 Author's Address 444 Lutz Donnerhacke 445 Fitug e.V. 446 Leutragraben 1 447 Jena 07743 448 DE 450 Phone: +49 3641 573561 451 Email: lutz@fitug.de