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Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 1 comment (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group I. Learmonth 3 Internet-Draft Tor Project 4 Intended status: Informational December 12, 2018 5 Expires: June 15, 2019 7 Guidelines for Performing Safe Measurement on the Internet 8 draft-learmonth-pearg-safe-internet-measurement-01 10 Abstract 12 Researchers from industry and academia will often use Internet 13 measurements as a part of their work. While these measurements can 14 give insight into the functioning and usage of the Internet, they can 15 come at the cost of user privacy. This document describes guidelines 16 for ensuring that such measurements can be carried out safely. 18 Note 20 Comments are solicited and should be addressed to the research 21 group's mailing list at pearg@irtf.org and/or the author(s). 23 The sources for this draft are at: 25 https://github.com/irl/draft-safe-internet-measurement 27 Status of This Memo 29 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 30 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 32 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 33 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 34 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 35 Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 37 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 38 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 39 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 40 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 42 This Internet-Draft will expire on June 15, 2019. 44 Copyright Notice 46 Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 47 document authors. All rights reserved. 49 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 50 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 51 (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 52 publication of this document. Please review these documents 53 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 54 to this document. 56 1. Introduction 58 When performing research using the Internet, as opposed to an 59 isolated testbed or simulation platform, means that you research co- 60 exists in a space with other users. This document outlines 61 guidelines for academic and industry researchers that might use the 62 Internet as part of scientific experiementation. 64 Following the guidelines contained within this document is not a 65 substitute for any institutional ethics review process you may have, 66 although these guidelines could help to inform that process. 67 Similarly, these guidelines are not legal advice and local laws 68 should be considered before starting any experiment that could have 69 adverse impacts on user privacy. 71 Considerations are grouped into two categories: those that primarily 72 apply to active measurements and those that primarily apply to 73 passive measurements. Some of these considerations may be applicable 74 to both depending on the experiment design. 76 2. Active measurements 78 Active measurements generate traffic. Performance measurements such 79 as TCP throughput testing [RFC6349] or functional measurements such 80 as the feature-dependent connectivity failure tests performed by 81 [PATHspider] both fall into this category. 83 2.1. Use a testbed 85 Wherever possible, use a testbed. An isolated network means that 86 there are no other users sharing the infrastructure you are using for 87 your experiments. 89 When measuring performance, competing traffic can have negative 90 effects on the performance of your test traffic and so the testbed 91 approach can also produce more accurate and repeatable results than 92 experiments using the public Internet. 94 WAN link conditions can be emulated through artificial delays and/or 95 packet loss using a tool like [netem]. Competing traffic can also be 96 emulated using traffic generators. 98 2.2. Only record your own traffic 100 When performing measurements be sure to only capture traffic that you 101 have generated. Traffic may be identified by IP ranges or by some 102 token that is unlikely to be used by other users. 104 Again, this can help to improve the accuracy and repeatability of 105 your experiment. [RFC2544], for performance benchmarking, requires 106 that any frames received that were not part of the test traffic are 107 discarded and not counted in the results. 109 2.3. Be respectful of other's infrastructure 111 If your experiment is designed to trigger a response from 112 infrastructure that is not your own, consider what the negative 113 consequences of that may be. At the very least your experiment will 114 consume bandwidth that may have to be paid for. 116 In more extreme circumstances, you could cause traffic to be 117 generated that causes legal trouble for the owner of that 118 infrastructure. The Internet is a global network crossing many legal 119 jurisdictions and so what may be legal for you is not necessarily 120 legal for everyone. 122 If you are sending a lot of traffic quickly, or otherwise generally 123 deviate from typical client behaviour, a network may identify this as 124 an attack which means that you will not be collecting results that 125 are representative of what a typical client would see. 127 3. Passive measurements 129 Performing passive measurements requires existing traffic. Passive 130 measurements can help to inform new developments in Internet 131 protocols but can also carry risk. 133 3.1. Consider the expectation of privacy 135 If you are in a position to perform passive measurements of live 136 network traffic, you are also in a position of responsibility. Users 137 of a network will have certain expectations of privacy and those 138 expectations may not align with the privacy guarantees offered by the 139 technologies they are using. As a thought experiment, consider how 140 users might respond if you asked for their informed consent for the 141 measurements you'd like to perform. 143 3.2. Only collect data that is safe to make public 145 When deciding on the data to collect, assume that any data collected 146 might become public. There are many ways that this could happen, 147 through operation security mistakes or compulsion by a judicial 148 system. 150 3.3. Minimization 152 For all data collected, consider whether or not it is really needed. 154 3.4. Aggregation 156 When collecting data, consider if the granularity can be limited by 157 using bins or adding noise. XXX: Differential privacy. 159 3.5. Source Aggregation 161 Do this at the source, definitely do it before you write to disk. 163 [Tor.2017-04-001] presents a case-study on the in-memory statistics 164 in the software used by the Tor network, as an example. 166 4. Risk Analysis 168 The benefits should outweigh the risks. Consider auxiliary data 169 (e.g. third-party data sets) when assessing the risks. 171 5. Security Considerations 173 Take reasonable security precautions, e.g. about who has access to 174 your data sets or experimental systems. 176 6. IANA Considerations 178 This document has no actions for IANA. 180 7. Acknowledgements 182 Many of these considerations are based on those from the 183 [TorSafetyBoard] adapted and generalised to be applied to Internet 184 research. 186 8. Informative References 188 [netem] Stephen, H., "Network emulation with NetEm", April 2005. 190 [PATHspider] 191 Learmonth, I., Trammell, B., Kuehlewind, M., and G. 192 Fairhurst, "PATHspider: A tool for active measurement of 193 path transparency", DOI 10.1145/2959424.2959441, July 194 2016, 195 . 197 [RFC2544] Bradner, S. and J. McQuaid, "Benchmarking Methodology for 198 Network Interconnect Devices", RFC 2544, 199 DOI 10.17487/RFC2544, March 1999, 200 . 202 [RFC6349] Constantine, B., Forget, G., Geib, R., and R. Schrage, 203 "Framework for TCP Throughput Testing", RFC 6349, 204 DOI 10.17487/RFC6349, August 2011, 205 . 207 [Tor.2017-04-001] 208 Herm, K., "Privacy analysis of Tor's in-memory 209 statistics", Tor Tech Report 2017-04-001, 210 . 213 [TorSafetyBoard] 214 Tor Project, "Tor Research Safety Board", 215 . 217 Author's Address 219 Iain R. Learmonth 220 Tor Project 222 Email: irl@torproject.org