Problem

• Activist operators are unclear on the level of security they provide
• It is difficult to start your own activist server
• Activists have difficulty making informed decisions about operators
• Difference between activist and commercial operators is unclear
• It’s hard to share configurations between activist operators

What do we want?

• Increased user awareness of privacy issues
• Users to make more informed decisions about operators
• Increased solidarity between groups and individuals using services
• Better compatibility between different operators (e.g. for networking services together)

How do we get it?

• Define standards that are easily understandable by sysadmins and users
• Provide examples of best practices
• Modular system that can be adapted to different operators
• Projects can announce and advertise their adherence to the policy

Table of contents

• Methods
• Results
• Modules
• Availability
• Discussion

Methods

• International group of participants
• English-language based
• Discussion over 3+ years
• Practising privacy-aware sysadmins

Results

• Up to 45+ participants
• Policy document version 1.0 completed
• Best practices workshops
• First “How to set up your activist operator” workshop

Needs more work!

What are modules?

• 8 modules (NOT exhaustive)
• 3 security levels for each module
• Evolving Best Practices document
• Parallel design to the policy

List of modules

• What to do in case of fire?
• Mail
• Webmail
• Certificates and keys for encrypted-stream based services
• Filesystems and Storage
• Logs
• Users
• Evaluation of policy compliance

Security levels

• Level 1: encryption
• Level 2: encryption + anonymisation
• Level 3: available as Tor hidden service

(Note: this is not technology agnostic enough, maybe “anonymising relay network”.)

Webmail

Level 1:

• User – Provider connection encrypted
• Inform users if IP included in mail headers

Level 2:

• Session info as cookies, not included in URLs
• IPs stripped from mail headers

Level 3:

• Functional without JavaScript
• No IPs in session management
• Available via Tor [NOTE: wording is currently confusing!]

Logs

Level 1:

• Logs are stored encrypted or only in memory

Level 2:

• Logs stored encrypted or only in memory
• Anonymised logs

Level 3:

• No logs stored

Certificates and Keys

Level 1:

• Using a well-established set of cryptographic parameters (cf. Best Practices)

Level 2:

• Private keys only stored encrypted

Level 3:

• Private keys encrypted and off-site

Best Practices

• Technology specific
• Similar structure to modules
• Links to already available resources

Availability

• Website: http://www.puscii.nl/policy/

How to get involved

• Use policy for your servers and services!
• Declare your compliance levels publicly
• Make a copy of the policy website (ikiwiki)
• Link to a policy website
• Contribute to the Best Practices document
• Help improve the future versions of policy

Discussion

• Debates over name, proposal to change it to Provider Social Contract or something else
• Want a public discussion or announcement list?
• Write to us!

Contact

• Email: pcp@and.nothingtohide.is
• OpenPGP: 93A3 28B9 CF38 200F AF0A 67F2 77D9 5A90 12B3 EEDA
• Website: http://www.puscii.nl/policy/
• Example: http://www.puscii.nl/policy.html