8. Tracking cloud devices

Tracking cloud devices
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Currently devices have been coming from many Internet service providers such as

-          Wireline Internet Service Provider (ISP) via cable, traditional copper wire, fiber optical lines, etc.

-          Wireless operators (WO) offering smart phones and tablets Internet access.

The cloud based services have been designed in such a way that users didn’t know where their data have been stored. The servers could be in a country or each service in a country, e.g. google+ server could be in USA, Gmail server could be in Europe, or google plus servers could be divided in smaller chunks as server for Canada was in Toronto, but US server was in California.

Some “IP address” organization (IPO) also offers users to use their servers in a foreign country as a proxy, i.e. user’s IP has been changed to another country other than the country offering user’s Internet services.

Is this hard to track down a hacker or malicious users using the cloud service?

It’s not hard to track those down based on a few things available in TCP/IP protocols. If those were not there, law enforcement could require service providers to comply, because law enforcement must be able to monitor Internet communications for junks and terrorists.

By looking at a TCP/IP packet quickly, we can tell that each packet contains

-          Originating IP address, which should be the ISP, IPO, or WO

-          Destination IP address was the target for outgoing TCP/IP packets.

-          Subnet address should be the internal or dynamic IP address of a user within the ISP, IPO, or WO. They could encode the subnet IP address into an internal ID associated with the user, thus ISP/IPO/WO would decode the ID and relay the returned Internet messages back to users correctly instead of using subnet IP address.

Law enforcement could require the ISP, IPO, and WO to comply with rules by providing messages and ID of a user based on the subnet address or an internal ID. The originating TCP/IP address must be correct or be the identity of the sender.

By breaking the IP address down, the cloud based services were not that complicated. We knew which IP address belongs to a company.

Speaking of tracking cloud database servers, we could tap in the “dispatcher” node of a company. The dispatching node, which receives user’s Internet request, redirects messages to correct servers. We don’t really care where the server was. Of course, if law enforcement wanted to seize a server, they could call that company and ask.

Don’t try to play with words for handing in the information of users of your system or networks upon requests. The requirement was clear that “law enforcement must be able to track down junks and terrorists”. If your networks used power lines instead of Internet lines, your users were more interesting for everyone. So, if you’re not an ISP, WO, or IPO you would also be required to cooperate, shut down, or shot down. It’s your choice.