It's the vote privacy advocates had prayed for. The Internet Engineering Task Force voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday not to provide wiretap capabilities for governments seeking to perform online surveillance.
Wired says the vote followed "a surprisingly polite debate that lasted about an hour," with fewer than 25 out of the approximately 800 audience voting for wiretap capabilities and hundreds raising their hands against the taps.
One of the keys was the complaint that putting wiretap functionality into standards made them less secure - something the IETF has opposed "It would be like having the Christian Coalition debating a protocol for third-trimester abortions," Phill Hallam-Baker, a networking security expert, tells Wired.
The FBI has asked the IETF to consider letting law enforcement have surveillance through the Internet, but the IETF conferees said no way, Jose. "This is not an area the IETF should be getting into," said Robert Moskowitz, the former chairman of an IETF security-working group. "This is something that cannot done right."
There were supporters of the wiretap protocol present, though, including an engineer from Cisco, who said not all wiretapping is illegitimate. And Brian Rosen of Fore Systems, which builds networking hardware, tells Wired that a lot of companies will implement the protocol with the wiretap.
IETF plans to publish a position paper on the wiretap opposition, with conferees telling Wired they expect it to trigger an arduous debate.
--- Richard Shimonh
