DTI Policy Response

[John R T Brazier]

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Subject:        Re: DTI Policy Response

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Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 16:23:18 +0200
From: Paul Ashton <paul@argo.demon.co.uk>
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brownrk1@texaco.com said:
> Carl Ellison[SMTP:cme@cybercash.com] wrote:  =


> > >So what happens when I send you a block of random numbers, base64
encoded?
> > >Do I get put on the rack until I reveal the key?
> =

> > If we are suspected of heinously using public key cryptography then *=
I*
must
> > get put on the rack, not you, because they will think that you used m=
y
> > public key to encode them.  And when I give them my decyphering key (=
I
hate
> > the idea of torture, prison, or even serious inconvenience - no macho=

posing
> > about having to unwrap my dead and twisted fingers from my smkking
Psion)
> > and they can't make head or tail of your message  they will come back=

for
> > more...

> Should "good.guy" here be for example a major bank, receiving encrypted=

information, this can cause encryption-receipt key  > disclosure on an
economically painful scale. (It'd be a new way for small net-savvy pressu=
re
groups to harass MegaCorp Inc, > in fact: first get a reputation for frin=
ge
violence, like some of the animal rights groups, then send encrypted RSA
messages to > the Big Bad Corporations. Voila - their encryption-receipt
keys float out of their control to the (utterly trustworthy) central =

> decryption facility. Yum yum yum. It'd work against other multinational=
s
too - hitech computer companies, big petrochemical =

> companies, ...)

The whole thing gets better and better due to the asymmetric nature of
public key crypto. Example: I am a Robert Maxwell clone (ugh) and can fee=
l
the Feds (and who knows, maybe the DTI) getting close. As I've been using=

PGP on my messages before sending them using the official (TTP escrowed)
keys of the recipients, I know that the cops will be round soon beating m=
y
door down for the keys. What do I do?
Simple: I send random blocks of numbers (encoded with their TTP escrowed
keys) to say, 50 opposition MPs. I now have, on the surface at least,
implicated 50 members of the opposition. Will the police take the rubber
truncheons to them? Will they charge everybody? If I destroy my private P=
GP
key I can claim I sent them anything I feel like. The choice of the
opposition MPs is essential as the government can be accused of trying to=

subvert the democratic system, as the authorities will already have had t=
o
get warrants for every targeted MP's private key in order to discover tha=
t
they can't decrypt the messages. Yum^4.

Cheers,

John B.