Trump raising concerns about Internet traffic passing U.S.: advocates

In November 2016, a group of Internet experts met in Toronto to discuss how to address the issue of Canadian Internet traffic travelling to the United States, which some say raises data privacy concerns that have now been amplified with the election of U.S. president Donald Trump. The two-day meeting was the first of its kind and was intended to determine what a national organization of Internet exchanges (IX) would look like, Ryan Hill, communications manager at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), said in a phone interview. The mandate for the so-called Canadian Internet Exchange forum: to keep as much Canadian Internet traffic inside the country’s borders as possible. “When our data leaves Canada, it loses any legal and constitutional protections it has, so there’s an immediate potential loss of privacy there,” Andrew Clement, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s faculty of information, said in a phone interview. “It is certainly much more important now — given what we see happening in the United States,” he said, pointing to Trump. He noted that since Sep. 11, 2001, the U.S. has “developed the apparatus to intercept all of that traffic to examine for profiles that they wish, and to store it, save it, pretty much indefinitely, and basically builds a dossier of individuals.” Roughly 64 per cent of Canadian traffic goes through the U.S. at some point before being repatriated in Canada, a phenomenon known as “boomerang routing,” according research by the Packet Clearing House (PCH), presented by CIRA at the ISP Summit in November. About 27 per cent of the traffic stays in Canada and the remaining nine per cent crosses other countries. In contrast, about 77 per cent of U.S. traffic stays inside its own borders, while 23 per cent passes through other countries. That data is based on surveys, direct observation of, and participation in Canada’s Internet exchange points, and the analysis of traceroutes, or paths, taken by 2,207,228 data packets. Even Canadian government websites aren’t immune — PCH highlighted that, out of 961 Canadian government websites, 66.9 per cent were hosted only in the U.S., 28.8 per cent “had instances hosted” in Canada and 4.3 per cent were in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. Advocacy group OpenMedia is also concerned about the issue. “Just based on what Donald Trump has said on the record, privacy is one of the big concerns we have with his new administration,” David Christopher, OpenMedia’s communications manager, said in a phone interview. He noted Trump’s past positions on expanding the mandate of the National Security Agency (NSA) and his willingness to move on things quickly, as he has done in his first 10 days in office. “He’s spoken in the past in very radical terms about shutting down the Internet in certain parts of the world, he’s spoken approvingly of dramatically expanding the powers of the NSA and other spy agencies.” Christopher added: “It seems pretty clear that’s something he’ll likely pursue.” One way to keep more data in Canada is by having Internet service providers interconnect with local Internet exchanges, of which there are nearly 10 in Canada, according to CIRA. These exchanges are largely not-for-profit public traffic hubs that have “peers” (carriers and content providers) who open and share their networks to those connected to the exchange. Traditionally, carriers exchange traffic on a private network, which acts as a direct end-to-end communication route, meaning that some traffic could be transacted at U.S. exchange points. Part of the problem is that not all of Canada’s Internet service providers (ISP) peer publicly in Canada, Clement said. Rogers Communications Inc. spokesman Andrew Garas said in an email that a local content delivery network serves the “vast majority” of Rogers’ web traffic. Rogers, however, does conditionally peer to the Toronto Internet exchange (Torix), the largest exchange in Canada, according to the exchange’s website. Other peering telecoms include Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holdings Corp., Shaw Communications Inc. and Teksavvy Solutions Inc., according to Torix’s website. Meanwhile, BCE Inc. spokeswoman Jacqueline Michelis said in an email that while Bell has “many connections to a variety of networks in Canada,” IXs are “not part of our focus.” Bell did not respond to additional questions about why it doesn’t peer publicly in Canada. Telus Corp., which did not respond to a request for comment, also does not peer publicly in Canada, Jon Nistor, a Cisco Systems Inc. systems engineer and former president and current board director of Torix, said in a phone interview. One effect of this decision not to peer publicly has been to effectively “force a considerable amount of Canadian Internet traffic onto the networks of large US carriers… the large Canadian carriers for data hand-offs in the United States,” according to a chapter Clement co-wrote in a 2015 book called "Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada in the Post-Snowden Era." Even some of Canada’s biggest banks have had instances of traffic routing through the U.S., which Nistor said is partly due to those big institutions generally not knowing what other Internet options exist. Nistor said he’s had conversations with “entities” in the U.S. who have been “doing a lot to move their data to Canada prior to Trump taking over.” However, he said from a Canadian perspective, his organization hasn’t really seen “any specific ramp-up” of urgency to move data traffic as a result of Trump’s victory. On the matter of privacy, ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development spokesperson Stéfanie Power said that although the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) does not prohibit the trans-border flow of personal information, it protects personal information handled by any Canadian company and that company must ensure its protection. The law also “requires that organizations make available specific information about its policies and practices relating to the management of personal information,” the email said. Clement noted there have been instances in the U.S. where hacking software planted on computers and servers has been used. The NSA has reportedly been doing that for years using a program called “Quantum Insert” — identified in a leak by former government contractor Edward Snowden. On top of that, data in foreign lands can also be the subject of cyber attacks from other foreign entities. The most recent high-profile Internet attack occurred in October, when names like Reddit Inc., Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. were the subject of a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. From the perspective of CIRA, part of the solution to some of these concerns is straight forward: build more exchange points. Hill said building an IX point is relatively inexpensive. Depending on the size and scale, prices can range from $1000 to $100,000 and funds are generally available through vendor discounts, grants or through CIRA, which have funded many IXs through its community investment program, according to Hill. “The exchange points will flourish when there is an Internet community around them to support them, and so CIRA plays an active role in developing and supporting that,” Hill said, adding that volunteers are needed to form boards and market the services. Power said that ISED believes the creation of new IX points is a “positive development,” which can “create efficiencies and enhance services for local users.” Clement suggested that the government and even the CRTC could take action to alleviate some of the concern. First, the government should develop the country’s infrastructure so that the equipment and communications remain inside Canada, he said. And second, he said the CRTC could use Section 7 of the Telecommunications Act — which states that telecommunications “performs an essential role in the maintenance of Canada’s identity and sovereignty — to push the issue. “There’s not a good reason why domestic traffic to go outside, so the big carriers need to be reigned in on this,” Clement said. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that Jon Nistor is the president of Torix.

Trump raising concerns about Internet traffic passing U.S.: advocates

News | January 30, 2017

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Trump raising concerns about Internet traffic passing U.S.: advocates

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