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

[Sean Rima]

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Hi Billy!

On Wed, 01 Dec 1999, Billy Donahue wrote:

> > > > You ignore a couple of major points of British law, in that the pol=
ice
> > > > chief would need reasonable grounds to believe that Bob was involve=
d 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 ch=
ief is
> > > > also answerable to British law. But I also understand that you were=
 using
> > > > it as an example.
> > >=20
> > > Fine, the police chief concocts a phoney charge against Bob and uses =
that as
> > > a pretense to get to the files.
> >=20
> > Hey that *never* happens :)
>=20
> 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.

Notice the :)

> > > > 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 plainte=
xt 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 u=
se
> > crypto to ensure that the stuff remains hidden from the police's eye.
>=20
> 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.

My phrasing was wrong. I hazard a guess that looking at the source to a
program, a decent programmer could get the gist of what happens. Of course
the dificulty with PGP/GPG is the random bits.

> PS: I really hope you're being sarcastic about the Pedophile and Organize=
d Crime thing.
>=20

Given the normal police man's thought, any one using any form for crypto
would be guilty of one or the other or both of the above. Otherwise why
would a decent person want to use it.

Sean

--=20
GPG ID (DSA) 92B9D0CF PGP2 ID 19592A0D Linux User: #124682  ICQ: 679813
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