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

[Billy Donahue]

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Sean Rima wrote:

> On Wed, 01 Dec 1999, Adam Lock wrote:
> 
> > Sean Rima wrote:
> > >
> > > 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.
> > 
> > Fine, the police chief concocts a phoney charge against Bob and uses that as
> > a pretense to get to the files.
> 
> Hey that *never* happens :)

M.L.K.Jr. was thrown in jail for a few DAYS for driving 30mph in a 25mph zone
shortly after the onset of the bus boycott.
 
> > > 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.
> >
> > Yes but Bob can *lie*. The onus is on the police to prove he is lying. How
> > do they do that given that they don't know whether the second plaintext is
> > random or not?
>
> It would be difficult to know but I hazard a guess that looking at the
> source they may get an idea. As I said in my original reply, the police
> would only use it for major criminals and Pedophiles, who it is known use
> crypto to ensure that the stuff remains hidden from the police's eye.

Nyahh... the source to the tool?
If you can tell that from knowing about the cipher, then the tool isn't
a cryptographic tool at all, it's just a fancy multiplexer.
It's certainly possible to make the ciphertext indistinguishable from
a single encrypted message.

PS: I really hope you're being sarcastic about the Pedophile and Organized Crime thing.


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