Home Office response on Burden of Proof

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 12:09 PM 8/5/1999 +0100, Andrew Meredith wrote:
>Nicholas Bohm wrote:
>> 
>> Clearly not.  There will be cases where possession of the key
>> can be proved by the Crown quite easily (e.g. where the accused
>> has responded to encrypted messages in a way that proves he can
>> decrypt them) [...]
>
>Imagine for a moment that Ben's forged key was being used by its actual
>holder on an anonymous communications channel of some sort (Mixmaster
>email, smutty newsgroups etc). The email address (if present) in the key
>would not be used to direct responses. The holder of the key would then
>be in a position to reply (with a signed and/or encrypted message) to
>the (signed/encrypted) messages sent using the PGP key, without
>reference to Ben. The message that was the subject of the decryption
>order could have an authenticated response showing a comprehension of
>the content, but Ben would not have been involved.

Proving that the holder of the key responded is not the same as proving
that the person on whom the decryption notice was served is the holder of
the key.  I imagine a "sting" case where the victim is sent an encrypted
email inviting him to collect a prize, which turns out to be a decryption
notice.

Regards,

Nicholas Bohm

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

Phone		01279 871272	(+44 1279 871272)
Fax		01279 870215	(+44 1279 870215)
Mobile   	0860 636749  	(+44 860 636749)

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