UK anti-encryption law
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UK anti-encryption law
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Re: UK anti-encryption law
#2I stand by my argument that you can have a encryption key that is say 2000 characters long. Print it out 1 character per page and submit that in advance at your local police station, getting a receipt. You are then within the law.
Now question is - compression can be views as encryption. How does that pan out if you use a non-standard form of compression that does not require a key as the compression formula is the key in itself!
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#3I stand by my argument that you can have a encryption key that is say 2000 characters long. Print it out 1 character per page and submit that in advance at your local police station, getting a receipt. You are then within the law. Now question is - compression can be views as encryption. How does that pan out if you use a non-standard form of compression that does not require a key as the compression formula is the k…
>> You are then within the law.
What good does your maneuver do? Now you have to work with that key, and if they really care, they can laboriously type it in. All you've done is tick them off, right?
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#4His argument is: 1) They can lock you up for refusing to decrypt something. 2) Encrypted data looks exactly like random noise. 3) Encrypted data can be hidden in any file. 4) Therefore, they can allege that nearly anything is encrypted and lock you up on that basis.
I'd say that's terrifying.
Another thought: doesn't this make it possible to frame someone by writing random data to their hard drive?
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#5I stand by my argument that you can have a encryption key that is say 2000 characters long. Print it out 1 character per page and submit that in advance at your local police station, getting a receipt. You are then within the law. Now question is - compression can be views as encryption. How does that pan out if you use a non-standard form of compression that does not require a key as the compression formula is the k…
>> You are then within the law. What good does your maneuver do? Now you have to work with that key, and if they really care, they can laboriously type it in. All you've done is tick them off, right?
Point being that there is a good posibility they will misfile it and in that case you have extingished your liability. Ticking of the police is not against the law and if enough people do it then the sillyness of things starts to stand out.
That all said you can have a trusted friend who lives in another counry maintain your key and vice versa, then things get messy.
Sad part about all this is criminals will find a way to get around the law, and in many cases they will way up the aspect of what charge they would get from the decrypted data compared to a maximum 5 year one and pick the easiest option.
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#6I have to wonder if this would ever hold up in court. I don't know much about the UK justice system, but in America it would be pretty rare to be convicted of a crime that they can't actually prove you committed. You could be jailed for refusing to comply with a court order to decrypt the file, but if you can prove it's not actually encrypted, they can't do anything about it.
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#7So, now Random actually /is/ Resistance?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE6RtzwVdHI
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#8I have to wonder if this would ever hold up in court. I don't know much about the UK justice system, but in America it would be pretty rare to be convicted of a crime that they can't actually prove you committed. You could be jailed for refusing to comply with a court order to decrypt the file, but if you can prove it's not actually encrypted, they can't do anything about it.
How do you prove something is not encrypted?
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#9I have to wonder if this would ever hold up in court. I don't know much about the UK justice system, but in America it would be pretty rare to be convicted of a crime that they can't actually prove you committed. You could be jailed for refusing to comply with a court order to decrypt the file, but if you can prove it's not actually encrypted, they can't do anything about it.
>> if you can prove it's not actually encrypted
But that's the thing: you can't prove that.
You're saying: "prove that there does not exist any decryption method or key that will turn this blob into incriminating data."
You can never prove that such a decryption method doesn't exist.
In fact, maybe it does exist? Given a blob of random data and infinite time, couldn't you find a way to "decrypt" that into pre-defined data? (I'm not really sure of that.)
Re: UK anti-encryption law
#10His argument is: 1) They can lock you up for refusing to decrypt something. 2) Encrypted data looks exactly like random noise. 3) Encrypted data can be hidden in any file. 4) Therefore, they can allege that nearly anything is encrypted and lock you up on that basis. I'd say that's terrifying. Another thought: doesn't this make it possible to frame someone by writing random data to their hard drive?
The argument isn't totally correct. The Police can't just make allegations and force you to surrender keys - they have to convince a judge that the allegations are true, and that getting the keys to your random noise will produce evidence.
RIPA is objectively flawed legislation, but it definitely doesn't "outlaw encryption" by anything less than a very long stretch of the imagination (as appears in this article).