[FYI] [ISN] U.K. Crypto Policy May Have Hidden Agenda (fwd) (from: jei@zor.hut.fi)

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@guug.de>]

----- Forwarded message from Jukka E Isosaari <jei@zor.hut.fi> -----

Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 22:15:12 +0300 (EEST)
From: Jukka E Isosaari <jei@zor.hut.fi>
To: ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Subject: [ISN] U.K. Crypto Policy May Have Hidden Agenda (fwd)
Reply-To: ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:50:28 -0600 (MDT)
From: cult hero <jericho@dimensional.com>
To: InfoSec News <isn@repsec.com>
Subject: [ISN] U.K. Crypto Policy May Have Hidden Agenda


http://www.nytimes.com/techweb/TW_U_K_Crypto_Policy_May_Have_Hidden_Agenda.html

June 3, 1999
U.K. Crypto Policy May Have Hidden Agenda
Filed at 5:06 a.m. EDT
By Madeleine Acey for TechWeb, CMPnet
  
Despite its abandonment of key escrow, the U.K. could be counting on the
ignorance of new Internet users to provide law enforcement easy access to
private communications, according to privacy campaigners. 

Following a meeting in London on Wednesday, where ISPs drafted a code of
practice for protecting user privacy, ISP and civil liberties groups both
derided British and European Union attempts to regulate the use of
encryption, caching and unsolicited email. 

ISP organizations, such as the London Internet Exchange -- or LINX --
described government policy as "extremely stupid," "misguided" and
"infeasible." But some said they found it hard to believe incompetence was
behind it. 

LINX chairman Keith Mitchell said the latest version of proposed
legislation regarding law enforcement access to encrypted email and
computer files was based on a "misguided conception" that ISPs would
provide users with encryption. 

A senior government official said last week the government expected most
warrants demanding keys to encrypted material would be served on service
providers. 

"The only encryption of any use on the Internet is end-to-end. The keys
are generated between the users. All the ISP is going to see is an
encrypted data stream," Mitchell said. 

"I still don't know a single Home Office employee that has an email
address," he said. But of the encryption warrant policy, he said the
government "either doesn't understand or is deliberately
misunderstanding." 

"I think they are deliberate," said Yaman Akdeniz of Cyber-Rights &
Cyber-Liberties. "They don't want to give away what they want to do." He
said there was a lot of pressure on lawmakers from the National Criminal
Intelligence Service, which wanted easy access. 

"The Home Office believes users will go to [third parties], like the Post
Office, to get keys," said Nicholas Bohm, spokesman for the Foundation for
Information Policy Research. "They should not be promoting a policy where
private keys are generated by anybody but the user." 

He, along with Akdeniz, said it was possible the government was planning
to create a new market, favorable to easy law enforcement access, where
new Internet users -- unaware of the tradition of free user-to-user
encryption -- would go to "trusted third parties" for encryption services
because they were endorsed by the government as safe. "If these new
services are there, many people will use them," Akdeniz said. 

-o-
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