**Session Date/Time:** 26 Jul 2023 20:00

# hrpc

## Summary

The Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group (HRPC) session included presentations on digital repression, defining the internet core, and a discussion on the decade since the Snowden revelations. The session also featured updates and discussion on the draft guidelines for human rights considerations in protocol development.

## Key Discussion Points

*   **Digital Repression:**
    *   Discussion on how digital repression is measured and the techniques used by governments, including surveillance, censorship, social manipulation, and internet shutdowns.
    *   The relationship between democracy levels and digital repression, and the role of China in the spread of digital repression technologies.
    *   Debate on whether actions against disinformation (e.g. related to the Ukraine war) constitute digital repression and the need to distinguish between government control and responses to misinformation.
    *   A discussion on the potential "substitution effect" where digital repression is used instead of violence by governments.
*   **Defining the Internet Core:**
    *   A presentation on the definition of the "internet core" as a connected component of active public IP addresses that can reach 50% of each other.
    *   The concepts of "islands" (unreachable networks) and "peninsulas" (partially connected networks) to describe fragmentation.
    *   A focus on observable characteristics of fragmentation.
    *   A discussion on the control of IP address space and the potential for someone to control the internet by controlling a majority of the address space.
*   **Ten Years Since Snowden:**
    *   A review of the changes in internet security since the Snowden revelations, including increased HTTPS usage and MAC address randomization.
    *   Discussions on the ethical considerations of protocol design and the importance of applying human rights considerations to commercial surveillance.
    *   A debate on whether the community has focused too much on government surveillance and not enough on commercial surveillance.
*   **Draft Guidelines Update:**
    *   Discussion and update on draft guidelines regarding human rights considerations in protocol development.
    *   Outstanding issue related to "content agnosticism" and the differentiation of traffic, specifically what constitutes the "good vs bad" traffic and the scope of whether the topic covers intermediaries rather than endpoints.
    *   Discussion on whether the document provides sufficient guidance or sets standards for what the IETF should be doing.

## Decisions and Action Items

*   The chairs will follow up on the outstanding issue with Ecker and the draft guideline authors.
*   The group will aim to resolve the remaining issue on the list.

## Next Steps

*   Authors will continue to work on the guidelines draft in GitHub.
*   The chairs and IRTF chair will work towards resolving the outstanding issue.