Criminals and strong encryption

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 15:27 28/04/1998 -0400, Carl Ellison wrote:

>At 06:38 PM 4/28/98 +0100, Dave Howe wrote:
>>Lets face facts here - a criminal is not going to follow a law that puts 
>>him at a disadvantage - that's why he is a criminal!  Laws are only there 
>>to be obeyed by the law abiding.......
>
>Perhaps because this is a UK list, I'm reminded of Miss Marple who was fond 
>of saying one should ignore the words and look at the actual events.  What 
>if we assume that your statement is equally obvious to the proponents of 
>GAK.  That would imply that the real targets of these proposals aren't 
>criminals but rather the law abiding.  If that were true, a number of 
>apparent illogical things would melt away -- such as the folly of trying to 
>legislate SIGINT openings against an active adversary.
>
>Now, I'm not saying this is the real drive behind GAK (although I have read 
>occasional reports about massive sweeps of all communications of law abiding 
>persons).  I'm just speculating that this is what Miss Marple might say.

Criminal to criminal communications will never use escrowed keys (except by
happy accident).  But criminals may use encrypted email to buy travel
tickets, rent cars, rent accommodation, make payments, etc.  To decrypt
those communications (and so assist surveillance etc), access to the
recipients' private decryption keys is needed:  that's why law enforcement
wants quick easy access via escrowed keys to the keys of travel agents,
estate agents, banks, etc.

Unfortunately, access to those keys gives them access not just to the
criminals' messages to those recipients, but to everyone else's messages to
those recipients as well.  

To justify the consequent widespread invasion of privacy requires cogent
evidence to show that the value of this form of instant surreptitious
access to criminals' encrypted messages to innocent recipients exceeds the
value of any other form of access (e.g. direct application to the
recipients for the specific information) by a wide enough margin.  No
attempt has even been made to provide evidence in support of such a
justification.  One can only assume that it is not available.

	Regards,

		Nicholas Bohm

Salkyns, Great Canfield,
Takeley, Bishop's Stortford CM22 6SX, UK

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PGP RSA 1024 bit public key ID: 0x08340015.  Fingerprint:
9E 15 FB 2A 54 96 24 37  98 A2 E0 D1 34 13 48 07
PGP DSS/DH 1024/3072 public key ID: 0x899DD7FF.  Fingerprint:
5248 1320 B42E 84FC 1E8B  A9E6 0912 AE66 899D D7FF