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

Sean Rima Sean Rima <thecivvie@penguinpowered.com>
Wed, 1 Dec 1999 20:57:41 +0000


Hi Rodrigo!

On Wed, 01 Dec 1999, Rodrigo Bernardo Pimentel wrote:


> (I'm not familiar with UK crypto laws, except for what I read on the
> Net).
>
> On Wed, Dec 01 1999 at 04:55:28pm +0000, Sean Rima wrote:
> > 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.
> Does the bill state that it won't be used against the average person
> on the street, but only for organised crima and pedophile? If it does, it
> requires proof of the crime before it can be used, which would make it less
> than necessary (useful, maybe, in some cases).
No it makes no mention of who it would be targetted towards. But as has been said in a previous reply, the police would and do believe that anyone using any form of encryption have something to hide.
> If it doesn't (which I believe is the case), then how can we
> possibly know? We can trust law enforcement, at the most. But that's not
> something I imagine "crypto-aware" people would do in good will...
> In short, that's what they say, not necessarily what they'll do. We
> shouldn't depend on that when divising means to protect our privacy.
>
It is a matter of educating the people in power that the average person who uses any form of encryption has nothing to hide. I personnaly would welcome any visit from any law enforcement agency to show that I have nothing to hide. Even my choice of NG's would show. Sean -- GPG ID (DSA) 92B9D0CF PGP2 ID 19592A0D Linux User: #124682 ICQ: 679813 To get my PGP Keys send me an empty email with retrieve as the subject It said "Needs Windows 95 or better". So I installed Linux...