Domestic Internet exchanges no ‘panacea’ against foreign surveillance

More domestic Internet exchange points would help protect Canadian data from foreign surveillance agencies though it wouldn’t shield that data completely, said Byron Holland, president and CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). In an interview last month, Holland said CIRA has been pushing for the creation of new domestic Internet exchange points for the past year to make it easier for Canadian Internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange Internet traffic with each other in Canada and to reduce the amount of Canadian data that flows out of the country and into foreign jurisdictions. While facilitating the exchange, or “peering,” of more domestic traffic in Canada would help reduce foreign security agencies’ access to Canadians’ data, it will never be a “panacea,” he said. “ packets will find the quickest, strongest path to their end destination,” Holland said in a telephone interview in late September. “That means they get routed all over the place, including into foreign jurisdictions.” The privacy of Canadians’ online data has become an increasingly important topic since this summer, when Edward Snowden, a former employee at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), leaked evidence that the NSA was collecting and analyzing Internet communications as part of its post-9/11 surveillance programs. The U.S. intelligence agency can gain access to Canadian data traffic when it travels across American network infrastructure, Holland said, potentially allowing the agency to snoop on Canadians’ private financial, health and tax information, among other sensitive data that is routinely transmitted online. “There’s an awful lot of data that Canadian citizens should be worried about foreign governments having in their hands,” he said. Holland said a majority of domestic Canadian Internet data currently travels through the U.S. en route to Canadian destinations. Even in cases where someone in Canada is emailing their neighbour across the road, he said, up to 40 per cent of those emails will travel through the U.S., leaving them vulnerable to possible NSA surveillance. One way to reduce the amount of Canadian traffic that flows into the U.S. is to build more exchange points in Canada, he said, and particularly those that would help Canadian network operators transmit data east and west across the country. Internet exchange points allow ISPs and companies that operate their own networks, such as Google Inc. or Microsoft Corp., to connect to the Internet and exchange traffic through a single, centrally located hub. They also help direct Internet traffic by sending out signals that inform data packets of the shortest, and most efficient path, to reach their destination. By building more Canadian exchange points, the theory goes, Canadian data would no longer need to travel through U.S. infrastructure to take the fastest path to its destination. At the same time, Holland said, there is no way to prevent that traffic from flowing into foreign destinations entirely, particularly when Canadians access websites and online services that have their servers based in other countries, or when network glitches or network congestion issues reroute data traffic. Another issue, he said, is the reluctance of Canada’s largest ISPs to peer with their smaller competitors within Canada. “Part of the beauty of the underlying protocols of the Internet is that it’s a very fault-tolerant, reliable distributed network,” he added. Chris Parsons, a network expert and a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria, said in an interview that adding more exchange points in Canada could play a role in protecting Canadians’ most sensitive information from foreign surveillance agencies, though not from Canadian agencies. “Canadian law enforcement has more access to more data if it all stays in the country,” he said. Brazilian TV network Globo said in a report Sunday that recently leaked NSA documents show the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) spied on computers and smartphones associated with Brazil’s mines and energy ministry, collecting the metadata associated with calls and emails sent or received by those devices. Parsons said building more domestic exchange points in Canada could be “potentially useful” to help Canadians transmit their sensitive information to the federal government with reduced fears that the information will become accessible to foreign governments or security agencies. He noted that many government websites are supported by servers in Ottawa or in other secure facilities within Canada, meaning there is no inherent need for online communications with the government to travel back and forth across national borders. More exchange points could also be particularly important to help reduce the amount of traffic between government institutions that flows across borders, he said, since those communications are more likely to contain state secrets or Canadians’ private information. “If you’re emailing someone on the other side of Parliament, it’s a good idea that it’s not hopping through the U.S.,” he said. “But it could still go there if it turns out that going through the U.S. is the fastest path,” he said, adding that network glitches “happen all the time.” —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Domestic Internet exchanges no ‘panacea’ against foreign surveillance

News | October 7, 2013

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