ImageStream Technical Support Forum

[jc]

The Wireless Internet Service Provider Association (WISPA) has released a new CALEA intercept standard that can be used to achieve safe harbor compliance with CALEA. Operators that comply with this standard can use off-the-shelf software like tcpdump or OpenCALEA to perform intercepts under Linux, however new software is required for full compliance with the standard when reporting out-of-band (OOB) events like DHCP using the standard's XML delivery format.

You can download the new standard at http://www.wispa.org/calea/WCS/.

In addition, WISPA will soon offer a CALEA IPNA Standard implementation guide to its members at no cost, or to non-members for $100. Check the WISPA CALEA Web site for details.
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jc

[SteveK]

So this is a sort of ISSO for WISPS? Or what exactly is its purpose? To establish rules and standards for WISPS to follow?

What are the benefits of being a member? We may be interested since we use Imagestream quite a bit now and are delving into Mikrotik as well and like both products.

[jc]

CALEA was passed by Congress in 1994 to support lawful intercept of telephone communications. Later when VoIP took off, the FCC clarified this to include all companies that provide high-speed Internet access to the public. As of May 14th, 2007, all ISPs were required to file a compliance plan with the FCC that identified the company contact for serving court-ordered intercept requests. This contact must be empowered to collect traffic from the specified target (i.e. customer), and the ISP must comply with a long list of additional requirements for full compliance. We have a White Paper you can read for more details at http://www.imagestream.com/CALEA_White_Paper.pdf .

CALEA itself does not specify a delivery format or methodology to be followed for delivering intercepts. In some cases, this can be negotiated with the Law Enforcement Agency (LEA). But to improve on this ad hoc approach, CALEA also encourages the development of industry standards for compliance and intercept delivery. These industry standards provide a "Safe Harbor" for ISPs who comply with them. So, if you comply with the WISPA IPNA standard, the LEA must challenge the standard in court to get it struck down, and the ISP cannot be fined if they are in full compliance with that standard.

There are Trusted Third Party (TTP) contractors that provide compliance services to ISPs. These services can be expensive, and our customers told us they wanted to be able to comply without a TTP. This is when we decided to develop support for lawful intercept for our products, and provide it to our customers at no additional cost.

The WISPA IPNA implementation guide is not yet published due to time constraints. So far, there have also been no fully compliant software releases that implement the XML reporting of out-of-band events, like DHCP and PPP authentication. Until fully compliant software is released, it will be difficult if not impossible to achieve full compliance the WISPA standard. WISPA is planning a release of the implementation guide in the next month or so, but there will still be points of compliance that may need to be negotiated with the LEA.

The good news is the FBI prefers the WISPA delivery method over the alternative standard authored by ATIS, and the FBI may well be happy with an in-band capture delivered in compliance with the WISPA standard, with DHCP or RADIUS logs that show the out-of-band events.

I expect fully compliant software to be released that will capture OOB events and report them via XML, just as the WISPA standard specifies. In the mean time, I think membership in WISPA is worth whatever you pay for it, when you utilize all of the benefits, and network with other operators on-line. The mailing lists can be invaluable, and the CALEA implementation guide will indeed be free to you when it is released.
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jc

[SteveK]

Ahh interesting. Unfortunately we are in Canada and I'm not sure about the laws in regards to this.