Security

Accountability and the Canadian Government’s Reporting of Computer Vulnerabilities and Exploits

/ Christopher Parsons

Photo by Taskin Ashiq on Unsplash

I have a new draft paper that outlines why the Canadian government should develop, and publish, the guidelines it uses when determining whether to acquire, use, or disclose computer- and computer-system vulnerabilities. At its crux, the paper argues that an accountability system was developed in the 1970s based on the intrusiveness of government wiretaps and that state-used malware is just as, if not more so, intrusive. Government agencies should be held to at least as high a standard, today, as they were forty years ago (and, arguably, an even higher one today than in the past). It’s important to recognize that while the paper argues for a focus on defensive cybersecurity — disclosing vulnerabilities as a default in order to enhance the general security of all Canadians and residents of Canada, as well as to improve the security of all government of Canada institutions — it recognizes that some vulnerabilities may be retained to achieve a limited subset of investigative and intelligence operations. As such, the paper does not rule out the use of malware by state actors but, instead, seeks to restrict the use of such malware while also drawing its use into a publicly visible accountability regime.

I’m very receptive to comments on this paper and will seek to incorporate feedback before sending the paper to an appropriate journal around mid-December.

Abstract:

Computer security vulnerabilities can be exploited by unauthorized parties to affect targeted systems contrary to the preferences their owner or controller. Companies routinely issue patches to remediate the vulnerabilities after learning that the vulnerabilities exist. However, these flaws are sometimes obtained, used, and kept secret by government actors, who assert that revealing vulnerabilities would undermine intelligence, security, or law enforcement operations. This paper argues that a publicly visible accountability regime is needed to control the discovery, purchase, use, and reporting of computer exploits by Canadian government actors for two reasons. First, because when utilized by Canadian state actors the vulnerabilities could be leveraged to deeply intrude into the private lives of citizens, and legislative precedent indicates that such intrusions should be carefully regulated so that the legislature can hold the government to account. Second, because the vulnerabilities underlying any exploits could be discovered or used by a range of hostile operators to subsequently threaten Canadian citizens’ and residents’ of Canada personal security or the integrity of democratic institutions. On these bases, it is of high importance that the government of Canada formally develop, publish, and act according to an accountability regime that would regulate its agencies’ exploitation of computer vulnerabilities.

Download .pdf // SSRN Link

Shining a Light on the Encryption Debate: A Canadian Field Guide

/ Christopher Parsons

The Citizen Lab and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) have released a joint collaborative report, “Shining a Light on the Encryption Debate: A Canadian Field Guide,” which was written by Lex Gill, Tamir Israel, and myself. We argue that access to strong encryption is integral to the defense of human rights in the digital era. Encryption technologies are also essential to securing digital transactions, securing public safety, and protecting national security interests. Unfortunately, many state agencies have continues to argue that encryption poses insurmountable or unacceptable barriers to their investigative- and intelligence-gathering activities. In response, some governments have advanced irresponsible encryption policies that would limit the public availability and use of secure, uncompromised encryption technologies.

Our report examines this encryption debate, paying particular attention to the Canadian context. It provides insight and analyses for policy makers, lawyers, academics, journalists, and advocates who are trying to understand encryption technologies and the potential viability and consequences of different policies pertaining to encryption.

Section One provides a brief primer on key technical principles and concepts associated with encryption in the service of improving policy outcomes and enhancing technical literacy. In particular, we review the distinction between encryption at rest and in transit, the difference between symmetric and asymmetric encryption systems, the issue of end-to-end encryption, and the concept of forward secrecy. We also identify some of the limits of encryption in restricting the investigative or intelligence-gathering objectives of the state, including in particular the relationship between encryption and metadata.

Section Two explains how access to strong, uncompromised encryption technology serves critical public interest objectives. Encryption is intimately connected to the constitutional protections guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as those rights enshrined in international human rights law. In particular, encryption enables the right to privacy, the right to freedom of expression, and related rights to freedom of opinion and belief. In an era where signals intelligence agencies operate with minimal restrictions on their foreign facing activities, encryption remains one of the few practical limits on mass surveillance. Encryption also helps to guarantee privacy in our personal lives, shielding individuals from abusive partners, exploitative employers, and online harassment. The mere awareness of mass surveillance exerts a significant chilling effect on freedom of expression. Vulnerable and marginalized groups are both disproportionately subject to state scrutiny and may be particularly vulnerable to these chilling effects. Democracies pay a particularly high price when minority voices and dissenting views are pressured to self-censor or refrain from participating in public life. The same is true when human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, and others whose work demands the ability to call attention to injustice, often at some personal risk, are deterred from leveraging digital networks in pursuit of their activities. Unrestricted public access to reliable encryption technology can help to shield individuals from these threats. Efforts to undermine the security of encryption in order to facilitate state access, by contrast, are likely to magnify these risks. Uncompromised encryption systems can thus foster the security necessary for meaningful inclusion, democratic engagement, and equal access in the digital sphere.

Section Three explores the history of encryption policy across four somewhat distinct eras, with a focus on Canada to the extent the Canadian government played an active role in addressing encryption. The first era is characterized by the efforts of intelligence agencies such as the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to limit the public availability of secure encryption technology. In the second era of the 1990s, encryption emerged as a vital tool for securing electronic trust on the emerging web. In the third era—between 2000 and 2010—the development and proliferation of strong encryption technology in Canada, the United States, and Europe progressed relatively unimpeded. The fourth era encompasses from 2011 to the present day where calls to compromise, weaken, and restrict access to encryption technology have steadily reemerged.

Section Four reviews the broad spectrum of legal and policy responses to government agencies’ perceived encryption “problem,” including historical examples, international case studies, and present-day proposals. The section provides an overview of factors which may help to evaluate these measures in context. In particular, it emphasizes questions related to: (1) whether the proposed measure is truly targeted and avoids collateral or systemic impacts on uninvolved parties; (2) whether there is an element of conscription or compelled participation which raises an issue of self-incrimination or unfairly impacts the interests of a third party; and (3) whether, in considering all the factors, the response remains both truly necessary and truly proportionate. The analysis of policy measures in this sections proceeds in three categories. The first category includes measures designed to limit the broad public availability of effective encryption tools. The second category reviews measures that are directed at intermediaries and service providers. The third category focuses on efforts that target specific encrypted devices, accounts, or individuals.

Section Five examines the necessity of proposed responses to the encryption “problem.” A holistic and contextual analysis of the encryption debate makes clear that the investigative and intelligence costs imposed by unrestricted public access to strong encryption technology are often overstated. At the same time, the risks associated with government proposals to compromise encryption in order to ensure greater ease of access for state agencies are often grossly understated. When weighed against the profound costs to human rights, the economy, consumer trust, public safety, and national security, such measures will rarely—if ever—be proportionate and almost always constitute an irresponsible approach to encryption policy. In light of this, rather than finding ways to undermine encryption, the Government of Canada should make efforts to encourage the development and adoption of strong and uncompromised technology.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

Project Support

This research was led by the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, as well as the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa. This project was funded, in part, by the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

The authors would like to extend their deepest gratitude to a number of individuals who have provided support and feedback in the production of this report, including (in alphabetical order) Bram Abramson, Nate Cardozo, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Ron Deibert, Mickael E.B., Andrew Hilts, Jeffrey Knockel, Adam Molnar, Christopher Prince, Tina Salameh, Amie Stepanovich, and Mari Jing Zhou. Any errors remain the fault of the authors alone.

We are also grateful to the many individuals and organizations who gave us the opportunity to share early versions of this work, including Lisa Austin at the Faculty of Law (University of Toronto); Vanessa Rhinesmith and David Eaves at digital HKS (Harvard Kennedy School); Ian Goldberg and Erinn Atwater at the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy (CrySP) Research Group (University of Waterloo); Florian Martin-Bariteau at the Centre for Law, Technology and Society (University of Ottawa); and the Citizen Lab Summer Institute (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto).

Authors

Lex Gill is a Citizen Lab Research Fellow. She has also served as the National Security Program Advocate to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, as a CIPPIC Google Policy Fellow and as a researcher to the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She holds a B.C.L./LL.B. from McGill University’s Faculty of Law.

Tamir Israel is Staff Lawyer at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He leads CIPPIC’s privacy, net neutrality, electronic surveillance and telecommunications regulation activities and conducts research and advocacy on a range of other digital rights-related topics.

Christopher Parsons is currently a Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, in the Munk School of Global Affairs with the University of Toronto as well as the Managing Director of the Telecom Transparency Project at the Citizen Lab. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Guelph, and his Ph.D from the University of Victoria.

Pleading the Case: How the RCMP Fails to Justify Calls for New Investigatory Powers

/ Christopher Parsons
'RCMP' by POLICEDRIVER2 (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/sEM7W5

‘RCMP’ by POLICEDRIVER2 (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/sEM7W5

A pair of articles by the Toronto Star and CBC have revealed a number of situations where the authors report on why authorities may be right to ask for new investigatory powers. A series of cases, combined with interviews with senior RCMP staff, are meant to provide some insight into the challenges that policing and security agencies sometimes have when pursuing investigations. The articles and their associated videos are meant to spur debate concerning the government’s proposal that new investigatory powers are needed. Such powers include a mandatory interception capability, mandatory data retention capability, mandatory powers to compel decryption of content, and easy access to  basic subscriber information.

This post does not provide an in-depth analysis of the aforementioned proposed powers. Instead, it examines the specific ‘high priority’ cases that the RCMP, through a pair of journalists, has presented to the public. It’s important to recognize that neither the summaries nor underlying documents have been made available to the public, nor have the RCMP’s assessments of their cases or the difficulties experienced in investigating them been evaluated by independent experts such as lawyers or technologists. The effect is to cast a spectre of needing new investigatory powers without providing the public with sufficient information to know and evaluate whether existing powers have been effectively exercised. After providing short commentaries on each case I argue that the RCMP has not made a strong argument for the necessity or proportionality of the powers raised by the government of Canada in its national security consultation.

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IMSI Catcher Report Calls for Transparency, Proportionality, and Minimization Policies

/ Christopher Parsons

imsi-catcher-coverThe Citizen Lab and CIPPIC released a report, Gone Opaque? An Analysis of Hypothetical IMSI Catcher Overuse in Canada, which examined the use of devices that are commonly referred to as ‘cell site simulators’, ‘IMSI Catchers’, ‘Digital Analyzers’, or ‘Mobile Device Identifiers’, and under brand names such as ‘Stingray’, DRTBOX, and ‘Hailstorm’. IMSI Catchers are a class of of surveillance devices used by Canadian state agencies. They enable state agencies to intercept communications from mobile devices and are principally used to identify otherwise anonymous individuals associated with a mobile device and track them.

Though these devices are not new, the ubiquity of contemporary mobile devices, coupled with the decreasing costs of IMSI Catchers themselves, has led to an increase in the frequency and scope of these devices’ use. Their intrusive nature, as combined with surreptitious and uncontrolled uses, pose an insidious threat to privacy.

This report investigates the surveillance capabilities of IMSI Catchers, efforts by states to prevent information relating to IMSI Catchers from entering the public record, and the legal and policy frameworks that govern the use of these devices. The report principally focuses on Canadian agencies but, to do so, draws comparative examples from other jurisdictions. The report concludes with a series of recommended transparency and control mechanisms that are designed to properly contain the use of the devices and temper their more intrusive features.

The report is structured across four sections:

  • Section One provides an overview of the technical capabilities of IMSI Catchers.
  • Section Two focuses on civil society and journalists’ efforts to render transparent how IMSI Catchers are used.
  • Section Three examines the regulation of IMSI Catchers and avenues towards lawful regulation of their use.
  • Section Four sets out best practices that should be incorporated into a framework governing IMSI Catcher use.

In more detail, Section One provides an overview of the technical capabilities of IMSI Catchers. The report principally focuses on how the devices can be used in ‘identification mode’, where they intercept digital numbers that are unique to mobile devices. IMSI Catchers exploit weaknesses in the design of mobile communications systems to induce mobile devices to transmit these unique numbers that, typically, are only sent to telecommunications carriers. From a privacy perspective, the report argues that IMSI Catchers are inherently intrusive: by design, they capture mobile identifiers from all phones in range, leading to significant collateral privacy impact that can affect the privacy of thousands of non-targets for each individual legitimate target.

Section Two focuses on transparency efforts associated with IMSI Catchers, and how states have routinely sought to prevent information about IMSI Catchers from reaching the public record. After highlighting some of the hard-fought successes to bring documents to the public record in the United States, in particular, the report examines comparable efforts to uncover IMSI Catchers’ use in Canada and these efforts’ comparative successes and failures. In doing so, a case analysis is conducted where the Toronto Police Services Board successfully (and inappropriately) prevented documents from becoming public. The report critiques a number of the justifications that are frequently advanced by state agencies seeking to prevent information related to IMSI Catchers from becoming public. Furthermore, it argues that providing some details on IMSI Catcher use will not undermine the investigative utility of the devices, and that there is substantial public interest that should compel authorities to disclose documents regardless of whether they affect investigative utility. Furthermore, disclosure of such documents is needed to evaluate whether the possession of the devices is inconsistent with the Radiocommunications Act, the Privacy Act, and perhaps the Charter. Equally seriously, refusing to officially acknowledge IMSI Catcher use in the face of a growing body of documents demonstrating their use threatens to undermine public confidence that the devices are being used lawfully and in a manner that is proportionate and minimized their impact on non-targeted members of the public.

Section Three examines the regulation of IMSI Catchers and avenues towards the lawful authorization of their use. After surveying German and American regulatory processes to understand gaps in the Canadian context, the report explores Canada’s ambitious statutory framework for electronic surveillance. Doing so explicates the legal avenues state agencies can exercise to authorize their use of IMSI Catchers. This section reveals how a range of overlapping powers might apply to IMSI Catcher authorization, and that this ambiguity might let agencies deploy IMSI Catchers using powers offering minimal privacy protection. The section concludes by examining the Charter implications of IMSI Catcher uses, and rejects possible justifications of IMSI Catcher deployment which lack prior judicial authorization. A series of safeguards and conditions on the use of IMSI Catchers, such that their operation does not amount to a constitutionally impermissible search, wraps up this section.

Section Four sets out best practices that should be incorporated into a framework governing IMSI Catcher use. The section recommends that IMSI Catcher use by state agencies be subject to comprehensive transparency mechanisms, including annual statistical reporting on use, an individual notice requirement, and compliance with standard reporting obligations typically applied to radio devices owned by state agencies. It further argues for the criminalization of unauthorized uses of IMSI Catchers. Such authorization should be subject to a strict regime that is linked with demonstrating their investigative necessity, including a “serious crimes” provision that limits IMSI Catchers’ use to investigate only the most severe offences. In addition to proportionality measures, targeting and minimization procedures should be imposed to limit the collateral impact of deployment on innocent third-parties.

The report’s Conclusion highlights core findings and also emphasizes the importance of privacy in liberal democratic societies.

We hope that this report will contribute to the growing discussion and debate concerning how, and the appropriateness of, state agencies’ use of IMSI Catchers. Ultimately, it is in the government’s and citizens’ best interest for state agencies to be more transparent and accountable for how they use IMSI Catchers in the course of conducting investigations.

DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT (English) // DOWNLOAD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (French)

Project Support

The authors would like to graciously thank a number of sources whose generous funding made this report possible: the Open Society Foundation, Frederick Ghahramani, a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, and the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Furthermore, the authors are grateful for in-depth substantive input on the December 2015 draft of this document from Professor Ron Deibert and Sarah McKune, to Adrian Dabrowski and to participants of Citizen Lab Summer Institute 2016 for key input on technical questions raised by this paper and to Lex Gill for extensive substantive additions and edits. Responsibility for any errors or omissions remains with the authors.

Authors

Christopher Parsons

Dr. Christopher Parsons received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Guelph, and his Ph.D from the University of Victoria. He is currently the Managing Director of the Telecom Transparency Project and a Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, in the Munk School of Global Affairs.

Tamir Israel

Tamir is staff lawyer with the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, where he conducts research and advocacy on various digital rights-related topics, with a focus on online privacy and anonymity, net neutrality, intellectual property, intermediary liability, spam, e-commerce, and consumer protection generally.

Why We Need to Reevaluate How We Share Intelligence Data With Allies

/ Christopher Parsons

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Last week, Canadians learned that their foreign signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), had improperly shared information with their American, Australian, British, and New Zealand counterparts (collectively referred to as the “Five Eyes”). The exposure was unintentional: Techniques that CSE had developed to de-identify metadata with Canadians’ personal information failed to keep Canadians anonymous when juxtaposed with allies’ re-identification capabilities. Canadians recognize the hazards of such exposures given that lax information-sharing protocols with US agencies which previously contributed to the mistaken rendition and subsequent torture of a Canadian citizen in 2002.

Tamir Israel (of CIPPIC) and I wrote and article for Just Security following these revelations. We focused on the organization’s efforts, and failure, to suppress Canadians’ identity information that is collected as part of CSE’s ongoing intelligence activities and the broader implications of erroneous information sharing. Specifically, we focus on how such sharing can have dire life consequences for those who are inappropriately targeted as a result by Western allies and how such sharing has led to the torture of a Canadian citizen. We conclude by arguing that the collection and sharing of such information raises questions regarding the ongoing viability of the agency’s old-fashioned mandates that bifurcate Canadian and non-Canadian persons’ data in light of the integrated nature of contemporary communications systems and data exchanges with foreign partners.

Read the Article

Authors

Tamir Israel

Tamir is staff lawyer with the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, where he conducts research and advocacy on various digital rights-related topics, with a focus on online privacy and anonymity, net neutrality, intellectual property, intermediary liability, spam, e-commerce, and consumer protection generally.

Christopher Parsons

Dr. Christopher Parsons received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Guelph, and his Ph.D from the University of Victoria. He is currently the Managing Director of the Telecom Transparency Project and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Citizen Lab, in the Munk School of Global Affairs.

Photo credit: Spies by Kieran Lamb (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/416nVf

New Update to the SIGINT Summaries

/ Christopher Parsons

Grondstation van de Nationale SIGINT Organisatie (NSO) in Burum, Frysl‚nI have added one new item to the SIGINT Summaries page. The Summaries include downloadable copies of leaked Communications Security Establishment (CSE) documents, along with summary, publication, and original source information.1 CSE is Canada’s foreign signals intelligence agency and has operated since the Second World War.

Documents were often produced by CSE’s closest partners which, collectively, form the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network. This network includes the CSE, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Australian Signals Directorate (ASD),2 and Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)).

All of the documents are available for download from this website. Though I am hosting the documents they were all first published by another party. The new documents and their summaries are listed below. The full list of documents and their summary information is available on the Canadian SIGINT Summaries page.

The new contribution comes from documents released by CBC and covers how Five Eyes intelligence analysts correlated telephony and mobile Internet communications information. For the first time I have noted, in the summary block, all of the codenames that were mentioned in the redacted document.

Synergising Network Analysis Tradecraft: Network Tradecraft Advancement Team (NTAT)

Summary: This slide deck showcases some of the activities, and successes, of the Network Tradecraft Advancement Team (NTAT). The slides focus on how to develop and document tradecraft which is used to correlate telephony and Internet data. Two separate workshops are discussed, one in 2011 and another in 2012. Workshop outcomes included identifying potentially converged data (between telephony and Internet data) as well as geolocating mobile phone application servers. A common mobile gateway identification analytic was adopted by three agencies, including DSD. NTAT had also adopted the CRAFTY SHACK tradecraft documentation system over the courses of these workshops.

In an experiment, codenamed IRRITANT HORN, analysts explored whether they could identify connections between a potentially ‘revolutionary’ country and mobile applications servers. They successfully correlated connections with application servers which opened up the potential to conduct Man in the Middle attacks or effect operations towards the mobile devices, as well as the potential to harvest data in transit and at rest from the devices. In the profiling of mobile applications servers it appears that EONBLUE was used to collect information about a company named Poynt; that company’s application was being used by Blackberry users, and the servers profiled were located in Calgary, Alberta (Canada).

The agencies successfully found vulnerabilities in UCWeb, which was found to leak IMSI, MSISDN, IMEI, and other device characteristics. These vulnerabilities were used to discover a target and it was determined that the vulnerabilities might let a SIGINT agency serve malware to the target. A ‘microplugin’ for XKeyscore was developed so that analysts could quickly surface UCWeb-related SIGINT material. (NOTE: The Citizen Lab analyzed later versions of UCWeb and found vulnerabilities that were subsequently patched by the company. For more, see: “A Chatty Squirrel: Privacy and Security Issues with UC Browser.”)

Document Published: May 21, 2015
Document Dated: 2012 or later
Document Length: 52 pages (slides plus notes)
Associated Article: Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware
Download Document: Synergising Network Analysis Tradecraft: Network Tradecraft Advancement Team (NTAT)
Codenames mentioned: ATLAS, ATHENA, BLAZING SADDLES, CRAFTY SHACK, DANAUS, EONBLUE, FRETTING YETI, HYPERION, IRRITANT HORN, MASTERSHAKE, PEITHO, PLINK, SCORPIOFORE

Footnotes

  1.  Formally known as the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). ↩
  2.  The ASD was formerly known as the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD). ↩