A tough nut the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has to handle: a new technical standards draft by the Chinese government raises questions about the future of anonymity in the Internet. The reasons for this draft are once more security-driven: by introducing IP tracebacks, thus being able to track down a single user's IP address at any given moment, various attacks, including DDoS are expected to be fought against easier. The only really disturbing thing here is why it needs a quite technical reason for justifying IP traceback and data retention. Politicians are busily working on these subjects for several months, if not years. The common justification, however, deals with subjects like 'fight on terror', 'child porn', 'legal protection of children' and the like. Making complete surveillance an Internet standard would introduce a new quality, though. Hackers and criminal data collectors - including governments - will love it. (Source)