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

[Billy Donahue]

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Raman Boucher wrote:

> Message from a new crypto junkie:
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't think this fully solves the problem.
> 
> Bob still has to 'lie' (at least that is how the cops will
> feel about it). Ultimately Bob still has a way to get to
> the meaningful plaintext...and given only a small sampling of
> cyphertexts the cops will eventually get figure that out
> (meaningless faketexts, incorrect file sizes...).
> 
> It may be possible for Bob to put them off temporarily by using 
> "meaningful" faketexts. But I suspect that won't last...cops
> (at least in movies) see to be tenacious creatures.
> 
> This scheme seems to be an elaboration of Bob saying to
> the cops "I lost that key". Because Bob can still get to the
> meat, but the cops cannot...and only if Bob is caught
> 'with his hand in the cookie jar' can he legitimately be
> arrested.
> 
> Better is for Bob to encrypt his message with Alice's key
> as in the two-key system. He doesn't know the key, but
> can get it. Bob can't coerce Alice to give up her key
> (though the cops may be able to). Of course Bob must trust
> Alice to cough up the key when necessary. 
> 
> Perhaps for this purpose, Alice can be a bot. When tickled
> in just the right way, Alice will give up her key...not a 'key'
> perse, but still some way to keep the key safe.

Alice could also live in Switzerland or something, and then
the Chief is shit-out-of-luck.


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