New UK crypto law and an idea on how to defeat it

[Billy Donahue]

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Sean Rima wrote:

> Hi Adam!
> 
> You ignore a couple of major points of British law, in that the police chief
> would need reasonable grounds to believe that Bob was involved somehow in a
> crime. He would not be able to demand Bob's key if he believed that Bob was
> having an affair with his wife. Don't forget that the police chief is also
> answerable to British law. But I also understand that you were using it as
> an example.
> 
> The second mistake you make is that if Bob used such a program, he would
> have to hand over both sets of keys. He would not be able to say that there
> was only one. Should the police chief find that the file was locked also
> with a second key then Bob would be automatically guilty of failing to hand
> over the keys.
> 
> Bob would not be able to claim that the files were encrypted using random
> keys without his knowledge as he would have had to start the process.
> 
> My personal view is that such a bill may not happen. But if it does, it will
> be mainly used for Organised Crime and Pedophile and not against the
> average person on the street.

There are many levels of people who are interesting to the police.
It isn't a matter of black and white, pedophile or avg-person.

This would certainly been used against Gandhi, M.L. King, Phil Zimmerman,
Tories, Sinn Fein, Communists, GreenPeace, the Pope, movie stars, and a
host of other completely responsible intellectuals and influential
(or potentially influential) public figures.

To bury your head in the sand like that is unacceptable..  I wonder
what would bring such a naive person to the GnuPG mailing list.

Unless you're a covert (or even overt) gov't. propagandist.

--
"The Funk, the whole Funk, and nothing but the Funk."
Billy Donahue
mailto:billy@escape.com
http://www.escape.com/~billy