The Co-operation WG may be interested in the following report of a reply
by a European Commissioner to a European Parliamentary question about
Carrier Grade NAT - not least because the reply refers to this WG by name.


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:        (CGN) European Commission PQ response
Date:   Wed, 28 Jun 2017 08:37:47 +0000
From:   Owen Bennett <owen@euroispa.org>
To:     DG-Euroispa cybersecurity <cybersecurity@euroispa.org>



Dear EuroISPA Cybersecurity committee,


The European Commission has published its answer to a recent European
Parliament parliamentary question*concerning ISPs’ deployment of CGN
(carrier-grade network access translation) and the so-called
‘going-dark’ problem.*


To remind, ISPs are under increasing pressure from law enforcement with
regard to their use of CGN technology – the fact of putting multiple
users behind individual IP addresses is said to stifle law enforcement
investigations of crimes with an online component.


The Commission’s response to the parliamentary question is pertinent for
EuroISPA in that it is one of the first times where the Institution has
addressed the CGN matter in an official /on the record /capacity.


As you will see, the Commission’s response falls short of calling for
regulatory intervention to limit CGN deployment, and even goes as far as
to label CGN deployment ‘unavoidable’.


We will continue to monitor this matter at EU-level and keep members
updated.


Kind regards,

Owen


***

*Question of MEP Agnew (EFDD, UK), Carrier Grade Network Access
Translation
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT%2bWQ%2bE-2017-001101%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN>,
17 February 2017*

/[Europol recently held a meeting to discuss CGN technologies that have
long been used by ISPs to delay the capex required to extend the current
pool of IP addresses (CGN technologies are used by ISPs to share one
single IP address among multiple subscribers at the same time)./

/Does the Commission agree that restricting the continued use of CGN,
simply on the grounds that Europol finds it inconvenient to monitor, is
a retrograde step and an unacceptable interference with current
commercial practice and freedom of technological choice?]/

*Answer given by Commissioner Avramopoulos
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2017-001101&language=EN>
on behalf of the European Commission, 26 June 2017  *


/[The Commission is aware that law enforcement authorities have raised
certain concerns regarding the increasing use of Carrier-Grade Network
Address Translation (CGN) technology. CGN enables a single Internet
Protocol (IP) address to be shared by potentially thousands or hundreds
of thousands of subscribers at the same time since there is not enough
capacity under the current IP version 4 (IPv) to meet demand. This makes
it technically very difficult for an internet service provider to
identify an individual subscriber in response to legitimate requests
from law enforcement authorities. Consequently, it is difficult to
attribute crime and identify criminals using that particular IP address.
Europol thus has legitimate concerns regarding CGN or other forms of
address sharing, which may also have a negative impact on fraud
detection or intrusion detection systems. They may also have other
negative consequences, such as overall performance degradation of
connections or even, in some cases, certain applications not working at
all.  /

/ /

/The expedited deployment of IP version 6 (IPv6)//on a global scale and
by all stakeholders would mitigate the problems and also offer new
opportunities to service providers. In the short term, however, the use
of IPv4 address-sharing is unavoidable, as there are still a significant
number of users, services and applications that function only with IPv4.
At the same time, the Commission is not aware of any proposals to
restrict the continued use of CGN, but rather of efforts being made to
raise awareness about the issue, share best practices and find ways to
facilitate the attribution of crime. It intends to raise the issue to
RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) via its representative who is chairing
RIPE's Cooperation Working Group.]/


***


*Owen Bennett*

Policy Executive
*EuroISPA - European Internet Services Providers Association *
Rue du Commerce 124/5 - 1000 Brussels
T: +32 (0)2 550 41 22
www.euroispa.org <http://www.euroispa.org/>

Follow us on Twitter *@euroispa <https://twitter.com/euroispa>*


*EuroISPA is the world's largest association of Internet Services
Providers, representing over 2500 ISPs across Europe.*

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