Home Office response on Burden of Proof

[William H. Geiger III]

In <3.0.5.32.19990805174426.00b1c9c0@mail.netkonect.co.uk>, on 08/05/99 
   at 05:44 PM, Nicholas Bohm <nbohm@ernest.net> said:

>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.

Still all this proves is *past* possesion of the decryption key. It shows
nothing of the current possesion of that key. Considering that a key can
be destroyed in a fraction of a second this is a very important
distinction.


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Hi Jeff!! :)
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