Irate Over Spying, EU Barks Up Wrong Regulatory Tree

By Amir Mizroch and Frances Robinson

Neelie Kroescall for more globalization of the way the internet is run isnt the first attempt to use allegations about NSA spying to bolster Europes position and give new impetus to existing reform efforts.

Over the summer, European leadersexpressed outrage that they were spied on. This weeks fresh call to reform Icann, the U.S.-controlled agency that doles out domain names and Internet Protocol addresses came bundled with the EU bristling at the alleged NSA eavesdropping.

But experts say the two issues are being wrongly paired. Changing governance wont change the way the current plumbing of the Internet makes mass surveillance possible in the first place.

Much of the alleged NSA and U.K. intelligence listening involved physically tapping into things like fiber-optic cables. How would decentralizing U.S. control over where and how .com and .net addresses are issued help prevent that?

The EU similarly used the NSA allegations tobolster its case to pass commercial data-protection rules. Since those rules are to exempt any data dealing with national security issues, they would again be largely unrelated to the NSA allegations.

Nicholas Weaver, of the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley, says an internet wiretap doesnt care who allocates IP addresses or domain names.

If the traffic is unencrypted, it sees all, whether the destination is to a .ru domain or .co.uk. And even if everything was encrypted, the wiretap doesnt care whos assigning the addresses, just that it can create a mapping between IP addresses and real world locations. The EU already has substantial privacy mandates, and if the EU was serious about countering the U.S. and UKs spying, they would extend these mandates to require all user-identifying websites and all email providers in Europe must encrypt all traffic, Weaver told the Journal by email.

The European Parliament also leapt on the revelations, even though its powers to act are limited. The youngest of the three Brussels-based European institutions, it is increasingly flexing is its muscles as it gradually gains power under new EU treaties, and has been keen to make itself out as the protector of the public in the wake of the spying scandals.

The directly-elected parliament held an inquiry into mass surveillance, which involved grilling senior managers from Belgacom SAthe Belgian telecoms company which was allegedly hacked by GCHQand academics, amongst others, about surveillance. However, it stopped short calling for the EU to grant protection to Edward Snowden.

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Irate Over Spying, EU Barks Up Wrong Regulatory Tree