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UK anti-encryption law

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Re: UK anti-encryption law

#161

Post by Zenst »

excuse-me wrote: post #157
polymatter wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRA terrorism was pretty extensive too. They murdered close members of the UK royal family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mountbatten,_1st_Earl_Mou... ), major damage to cities ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing ) and actual mortar attacks on a sitting Prime Minister and other key high level ministers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack ). Have a look at the list for…

Hence the slightly raised English eyebrow when American politicians - especially a Kennedy at a St Patricks Day parade in Boston - talk about supporting terrorism.

Yeah and that upto 9/11 you could go into alot of Church's in the Boston area and make donations to the IRA. That kind of stopped post 9/11.

We all learn from our mistakes eventualy.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#162

Post by MBlume »

adrianN wrote: post #18
nathan_long wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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…

You can decrypt random data to anything if you want to. Say R is your random data and M is the message you want. Compute Key=R+M, then decrypt R-Key=M.

Only if you use a key the size of your data, which is not commonly done.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#163

Post by switch007 »

It makes me really angry seeing protests about laws which have already passed! It seems to be lazy journalism - after Liberty et al have done the hard work while the bill passes through parliamentary stages, once it's passed, traditional media and others pick up on it and start complaining.

Prevention is better than ranting after it's set in stone.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#164

Post by dbaupp »

anonymous wrote: post #155
ianferrel wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (and in that scenario it would be a lot easier to frame someone by simply writing some child porn). Well, you'd have to get some child porn to frame someone that way. Random data is much easier to procure.

Sadly not by much.

It is several orders of magnitude easier to get random data: /dev/urandom.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#165

Post by natmaster »

nathan_long wrote: post #4

His 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?

Guilty until proven innocent.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#166

Post by winternet »

genwin wrote: post #21
freehunter wrote: post #6

I 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.

In America a suspect can be jailed for years, even in solitary confinement, no conviction or trial required. The actual number of cases may be small but it's still scary.

Bradley Manning. Never forget.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#167

Post by einhverfr »

mseebach wrote: post #145
baltcode wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the chances of proving such nebulous ideas change greatly if you can be demonized in the public eye.

That situation is really independent of the law. Imagine the law said that nobody could be compelled to decrypt data (using fourth amendment type reasoning), and it was leaked to the press that this person was suspected of traffic child porn, but refused to decrypt his harddrive - even when decrypting the harddrive could prove his innocence, wink wink nudge nudge .

I think refusing to decrypt a hard drive in the US is dependent on whether it is self-incrimination (5th Amendment) while police activities are more tied to the 4th Amendment.

But the point is "I gave you my password. I haven't seen the computer in a month while your forensic team was looking it over. Maybe I got it wrong, or maybe your boys screwed it up." That is not refusing to decrypt it. In fact it is very apparently cooperative.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#168

Post by einhverfr »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #111
einhverfr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

actually when I read /dev/urandom I get a much larger stream of data. I think /dev/random is corrupted becuase it hangs after a bit when I try to read. So please hand over the key for /dev/urandom..... ;-)

It hangs because your system entropy pool runs dry.

Whoosh......

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#169

Post by Zenst »

polymatter wrote: post #156
excuse-me wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but remarkably after 100years of bombings and assassinations by the IRA the response was to carry on as normal, don't give in to them. The only visible sign was removing litter bins from railway stations and some checkpoints on vehicles enter the financial district of London Yet 5 minutes after the 9/11 attacks on America the UK suddenly needed a whole raft of laws to intercept all phone calls, hold people withou…

IRA terrorism was pretty extensive too. They murdered close members of the UK royal family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Mountbatten,_1st_Earl_Mou... ), major damage to cities ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Manchester_bombing ) and actual mortar attacks on a sitting Prime Minister and other key high level ministers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_mortar_attack ). Have a look at the list for…

Yip they did it all.

Personaly cost me a job, almost blown up once and had a long walk on day. But we have moved on.

Funny thing is the there was a time I was supposed to go intot he office on saturday to do a upgrade, woke up saturday and had a bit of a hangover so as it made no difference I thought I'll go in Sunday. Was lucky as the office got blown up Saturday so in all respects a hangover saved my life - literaly.

The mortar attack caused me to have a very long walk, on a very snowy day, was alot of fun and fond memories of seeing a london taxi unable to go over a bridge as the road was so snowed/iced up.

I Had a in the bag job all lined up, IRA blew that office up and as such job went up in smoke.

But hey, it's history and can laugh about it now.

Re: UK anti-encryption law

#170

Post by alttab »

SEMW wrote: post #138
alttab wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you are right. Essentially the difference is bullshit. They simply don't send a notice to people they want to selectively ignore.

Think of it like a stop-and-search power. It is too wide, but not choosing to stop and search everyone who they have the power to isn't really like selective enforcement - it's just a power they can choose to use if they feel they need to.

In America that is a violation of 4th amendment rights. Now clearly this applies to UK, but we didn't fight the UK in a war for nothing.
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