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UK Government wants your crypto keys... by law.

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Renegade:
Welcome back Ken.

Back on topic... ;)

From a link in the OP:

http://www.stand.org.uk/index-update3.php3
The Electronic Commerce Bill would make it a crime to fail to give up the decryption key to a message if a policeman thinks you've got it. If you haven't got it, it is up to you to prove you haven't. If you can't prove it, you would be liable for 2 years in jail.
--- End quote ---


OUCH! Innocent until proven guilty? Yikes!

Before I was going to post something like "oh whatever - I forget the password - don't have the key - screw yourself - suck my balls - blah blah..." (Got to get that Eric Cartman thing in there...) However, seems like that would be up to a 2 year term. OUCH~!

Going to another link in there:

http://www.stand.org.uk/dearjack/

It's a letter telling about how at the end there's a block of encrypted text, and that the recipient could go to jail for it. Very good letter and excellent read!

This kind of stuff is just plain scary. Mere possession can land you in jail...

To add to the list of adjectives, may I put forth "insane"?

gjehle:
The Electronic Commerce Bill would make it a crime to fail to give up the decryption key to a message if a policeman thinks you've got it. If you haven't got it, it is up to you to prove you haven't. If you can't prove it, you would be liable for 2 years in jail.
--- End quote ---

OUCH! Innocent until proven guilty? Yikes!-Renegade (October 02, 2007, 01:51 AM)
--- End quote ---

Exactly.. that's what the German government is working towards too...
They also keep using new words to make stuff sound better, sounds like newspeak, i'm not kidding...

Carol Haynes:
OUCH! Innocent until proven guilty? Yikes!
--- End quote ---

Welcome to 21st Century UK! Notice the police don't have to provide any evidence that you are being obstructive or that the encrypted data contains anything illegal - it is just sufficient to suspect. Eric Arthur Blair* must be sliently chuckling "Told you so" in his grave!

This is becoming the default fall back in the UK - if in doubt you are guilty.

*Eric Arthur BlairNo relation that I know of - but this is the real name of George Orwell. IMHO he just got the year a little out.

iphigenie:
Still, let's not forget that in the UK the police cannot even ask people for an ID on the street. So they're not about to walk up to random people and demand access to their USB keys. We are talking about a judge being able to grant a warrant which demands that people decrypt information, within the confines of a police investigation...

We do seem to live in a world where governments and media (including the fiction industries) do seem to like to create constant alerts and fear, so we feel things are getting worse all the time and meekly accept to sacrifice liberties - from big civil liberties to simple things like the right to take a bottle of water on an airplane! We also seem to be creating "thought crimes" which is something that really really bothers me. So I have a tendency to be suspicious and wonder why such a law is needed, and how it could easily be abused, and what the agenda is.

Encryption is a challenge, and as much as I defend my right to privacy, (eg. using Tor even for mundane stuff because one day I might need it) and worry about the growing concept that what people think and imagine needs to be policed... I have to be honest and admit I also find it disgraceful that people can escape conviction just by encrypting their stuff. I can understand the frustration of the police and justice system at this... and why we might find it acceptable to let them demand the keys in certain circumstances.

I think it is a fine line between fair rights and letting people hide unduly behind the right not to incriminate themselves. If they kept the documents then it could be argued that they have already incriminated themselves by keeping the documents.

Of course I am all for putting "watch the watchers" in place, limits as to what kind of crime warrant this (real crimes not thought/planning crimes) etc. which there never seems to be in the UK - and without such controls and public monitoring I can easily imagine it could be abused...

So I am not sure where I stand on issues such as this one, really, worried about my privacy (and who knows when their kind of thinking might be made a crime!) but also outraged that money launderers, fraudsters, people trafficers, slave runners etc. could get away thanks to good encryption practices...

Carol Haynes:
Still, let's not forget that in the UK the police cannot even ask people for an ID on the street. So they're not about to walk up to random people and demand access to their USB keys. We are talking about a judge being able to grant a warrant which demands that people decrypt information, within the confines of a police investigation...
-iphigenie (October 02, 2007, 04:13 AM)
--- End quote ---

Nope - warrants seem to be a thing of the past in the UK. As I understand it the police can ask for anything they like in the course of an investigation. They only have to mention the word terrorism*. If you refuse they would get a court order (presumably after confiscating you and your equipment).

As for no ID cards in the UK have you seen the current proposals for UK ID cards - they make visible tatoos look tame. Iris patterns, fingerprints, credit history all sorts of stuff are likely to be stored on smart cards - and best of all the citizen won't even be able to check that it is correct information - or even necessarily know what is stored or who has access to it. We are also likely to be charge around £100 a pop for the privilege (not that it will be optional).

And don't even mention the proposed national DNA database!

* This is not paranoia - a Labour Party member was ejected from the party conference 2 years ago and taken into custody under the terrorism provisions for having the temerity to shout a single word in the public meeting "NONSENSE" (highly emotive you will agree). And he was in in his eighties! See BBC

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