What I do for a job
Disclaimer: These are my personal views and my personal comments. This article does not necessarily represent the view of my employer (Nokia Siemens Networks) or any of its other employees.
In what is possibly a bad move – time will tell – I’ve thrown my hat into the ring and declared my hand in a heated discussion that’s flaring up on Twitter right now.
At the centre of the discussion is the incorrect reporting that my employer, Nokia Siemens Networks, has supplied technology that allowed the Iranian government to intercept every piece of electronic communication throughout the country. The implication is that this technology was used by the government to harass, influence and punish people whose views were not acceptable, and in doing so, NSN have assisted in the suppression of freedom of speech.
I believe this is an exaggeration of what has actually occurred.
Lawful intercept
For those who aren’t already aware, I work on Lawful Intercept for Nokia Siemens Networks. The term “Lawful Intercept” means the ability to lawfully intercept communication on a data network. The team I work on is involved in lawful intercept of voice and data on mobile telephone networks.
The mobile network (known 3G in Australia, but it’s formally called UMTS) provides for the interception of both voice and data.
It is a fundamental requirement of the UMTS network as defined by ETSI (the European Telecommunication Standards Institute) that these intercept capabilities be present.
Within the UMTS network, to intercept mobile traffic, you need to identify an intercept target in one of three ways: via an IMSI (the USIM ID), an IMEI (the mobile equipment ID) or an MSISDN (the target’s publicly known number).
Having identified a target, the UMTS network will deliver the lawful intercept software all traffic associated with those identifiers.
As used in Australia (where I work, and where the Lawful Intercept software I work on is primarily used) the only way – the only way – to intercept UMTS traffic is for a lawful enforcement agency to obtain an appropriate warrant. The software requires a valid warrant reference be provided along with the intercept target details.
The warrant mandates the period of time for which an intercept is in place. Our software will only activate the UMTS intercept at the time the warrant comes into effect and will deactivate the UMTS intercept at the time the warrant becomes ineffective.
Capacity limits
The pieces of the mobile network (the ‘network elements’) that do the actual monitoring are limited in capacity. Voice traffic is intercepted by an element called the MSS (mobile switching server), and data traffic is intercepted by an element called the LIG (lawful intercept gateway).
Both can only monitor a fractional subset of the actual number of network subscribers because of practical limits in bandwidth.
The idea that the UMTS network could be used to intercept every mobile phone in a country the size of Iran is ludicrous. Anyone who knows anything about the mobile network would clearly understand that.
Deep Packet Inspection
Alongside UMTS mandated intercept requirements is a newish technology called Deep Packet Inspection – generally referred to as DPI.
DPI provides the ability to look inside data packets in real time and make decisions based on the packet contents. DPI is typically used to either intercept traffic (and therefore augment existing lawful capabilities) or influence the flow of traffic. The latter capability is often used in relation to P2P and bit torrent traffic, for example.
To the best of my knowledge, Nokia Siemens Networks does not have a DPI product. We use various third party DPI products depending on what the solution calls for.
Nokia Siemens Networks is a large multinational company, so I obviously don’t know about everything we do, but because of the area I work in I’m fairly certain of my facts here. We don’t have a DPI product.
The IRAN issue
The big issue that’s flaring up on Twitter right now is that NSN is reported to have delivered systems to the Iran government that allowed for the intercept of all types of electronic communication. I believe this is grossly incorrect.
Almost every comment points back to this Wall Street Journal article, which says, in part:
Every digitized packet of online data is deconstructed, examined for keywords and reconstructed within milliseconds.
This is clearly a reference to DPI, and not the UMTS network. The UMTS network is neither required to nor capable of doing what has been suggested.
The WSJ article talks actually about Nokia Siemens Networks using DPI to achieve this. I have no idea what was actually provided to Iran, so I don’t know if we actually provided a DPI component or not but I now know that DPI was not provided by NSN.
Facts
It’s not Nokia Siemens Networks’ policy to comment on individual customers, and I’ll do my best to respect that, but given my knowledge of this area of our business, the facts as I see them are:
- Nokia Siemens Networks provides UMTS compliant network elements, including the MSS and LIG, both of which assist in the lawful intercept of predetermined targets.
- Nokia Siemens Networks can provide DPI as part of a customer solution, but it does not itself have a DPI product. When we provide DPI we resell third party vendor offerings such as those provided by CloudShield, Allot, Sandvine, etc.
- Nokia Siemens Networks did not provide DPI as part of our solution in Iran. [Source]
My views
Those who look down on Nokia Siemens Networks should think twice before blindly following what the WSJ is saying.
Sure, NSN technology does provide lawful intercept components – specifically, those components that meet ETSI standards within the UMTS network.
Other vendors provide technology that supports Deep Packet Inspection.
Regardless of where it comes from, it’s ultimately up to a customer to decide what to do with a technology.
In Australia, our government has great respect for privacy and freedom of speech, and use lawful intercept in a perfectly appropriate way. Those familiar with the gangland killings in Melbourne of the last dozen years will appreciate that justifiable use of lawful intercept is a perfectly valid way to monitor criminal activities.
If another customer in another part of the world uses lawful intercept in a different way it is difficult for the technology provider to accept the blame for that.
It’s easy to suggest that no vendor should provide lawful intercept technology to oppressive regimes. In doing so you’re probably condemning people living under such conditions to having no access to mobile technology at all. Governments who wish to monitor their population as closely as is being suggested in Iran would simply not allow the use of a technology that doesn’t provide for interception.
As a final thought, if you really want to go after a company that provides the technology so that “Every digitized packet of online data is deconstructed, examined for keywords and reconstructed within milliseconds”, don’t look at NSN. Look at the DPI vendors.
Official statement
Nokia Siemens Networks have made an official statement on this issue and reposted that statement on a public blog where comments are encouraged.
Edit: Like the NSN blog, I will attempt to not moderate any comments in reply to this post except those that are purely abusive.
That’s a really good point, bkkphotographer. Our business is that sensitive today.
The key issue to me is that NSN’s customer (government) defines the term “lawful” and presumably they can re-define it at any time. So even if NSN made some judgement (a tough call) that the customer’s laws provided “sufficient” privacy protections to its citizens it would be hard to take the equipment back if the law changed.
Maybe you (NSN) have to face it – you are in a business that’s as sensitive as the munitions business. Today a government possessing control over information and its dissemination is as (more) powerful than one with many guns and tanks.
Many munitions vendors fall back on their home governments when considering export deals. If the US government gives me a license to sell F-xx fighter planes to Government X then we the manufacturer are in no position to second-guess the State Department. NSN and all vendors are open to strong criticism if it is your sales / marketing / upper management teams who make that call.
Arbinde;
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
My belief is that if Nokia Siemens Networks took the stand that’s being suggested, and refused to supply any lawful intercept tools to Iran, there are several possible outcomes.
Firstly, if NSN refused to supply lawful intercept another vendor would simply have stepped in and done so, resulting in the same outcome but with a different vendor to bash.
Secondly, if NSN and all other telco suppliers decided as a group that lawful intercept wouldn’t be provided, leaving Iran without any ability to monitor mobile communication, they simply wouldn’t deploy a mobile network. What’s better — a mobile network that allows intercept, or no mobile network at all? There were already comments about the SMS network going offline before the election. People have complained that a network capable of intercept was provided, and also complained that the network wasn’t available. You can’t have it both ways.
Finally, should NSN and other vendors decide not to supply lawful intercept to Iran, where do you stop? We’ve already made a corporate decision to not supply LI to Burma and China, but having a company make decisions based on geopolitical circumstances is a difficult one. Do you supply to Iraq? Indonesia?
I regularly deal with an EU country that would be considered largely benign, yet the LI solution that we’ve deployed there does not require a warrant for an intercept to be put in place. It’s not just the headline grabbing countries that have problems with invasive intercept of their citizens.
Andrew.
btw, this is one of the ways they “identify” numbers to be intercepted to be used for lawful intercept feature. https://twitter.com/EyeRanProtestr “. Just thought you might be interested to know how innovative they are in trying to source “targets” for “local calls”. I dont think one has to have a lot of imagination in getting the required warrants.
Dear Andrew,
Thank you for a well written explanation of the NSN’s lawful intercept description and capabilities for its UMTS cellular networks. I have read the WSJ article and Mr Roome’s statements (all 3 of them), Mr. Ariel’s and yours as well. I have a few comments to make on your article. I accept your explanation of the nuances and differences in the capabilities of NSN’s systems that were provided to Iran’s operator (As in what NSN may have provided versus what it may not have).
However, the problem I have is that NSN does not seem to take up ANY responsibility about the use of its products. What NSN and that would include you as well I guess, is taking a hands off approach.
You have to accept, that even without having provided DPI capability, and timed warrant activation and other amazing features, the system that NSN delivered provides the basic foundation and tools on which a third party system was able to provide the Iranian “law enforcement” agencies (if you would like to define the Basijis as lawful bodies) to actively target, monitor protestors and political dissidents.
The analogy that comes to my mind (a sad one at that) is your view sounds similar to a gun dealer when he says that he is NOT responsible at all if his client purchase an M16 (a perfectly legal weapon for armed forces), put on a sniper scope and shot a few random people in the street.
What a lot of people on Twitter and on NSN PR blog are objecting to is that NSN knew what these tools could eventually be used for, even if they were legally required, under the laws of the Iranian Republic, EU, US and mandated by telecom standards! What a lot of people feel, I believe, is that even that a responsible company such as NSN has a moral, ethical social responsibility to ensure that the capabilities and tools it were providing to Iran could not used for things like DPI. You have to accept that whatever NSN provided knowingly or unknowingly (difficult to believe that NSN employees were unaware) that the system that was delivered to the customer played A PART in some Iranians getting detained, imprisoned, tortured and yes, even killed.
As sad that it may be, NSN has to accept part of that “blame”. NSN employee must have know that there was a much greater likelihood that the “lawful intercept capability” was sooner or later going to be used for a purpose.
I shudder to think that you’d have the same reasoning when NSN next supplies its UMTS stuff to Burma, North Korea and the unit you work for will provide “lawful intercept” capabilities to “law enforcement agencies”.
Hi Andrew,
Nice to meet another NSN’er, and another engineer. I work in core services, and so have a small amount of knowledge of the LIE (just how it interacts with “my equipment”, SGSN/GGSN/etc).
Well done on writing your post. It is clear, factual and puts the matter clearly out in the open.
Personally I don’t like the idea of any LIE, but as you say, it is a requirement of governments when putting tenders out. Remove the governmental requirement and the LIE would go away….
The whirlwind of incorrect and factually wrong posts, articles was the thing that really annoyed me. Twitter has a bad habit (has created?) of making people blindly retransmit messages which they have no idea if they are actually true.
On the other hand, it serves a greater purpose when it enables people like in Iran to get messages out to the world.
Anyway, I thought I’d drop by and leave a message.
rgrds.