NCIS speaks out

[Richard Clayton]

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In article <5EB38D70559@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk>, Yaman Akdeniz
<lawya@lucs-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk> writes

>Pete-
>
>Do you have the original press release?
>
>> However, NCIS did cite a 1995 child pornography prosecution in which
>> "... the indications were that the suspects had used encrypted
>> communications to distribute child pornography to contacts around
>> the world by e-mail". What indications, and what type of encryption,
>> was not stated. 
>
>I know what case they are referring to. That is the Operation 
>Starburst and the case they mention is the Smith case. Smith got a 
>suspended sentence at the end and he was using PGP. Some details are 
>at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/child.htm

DI David J Davis's account of this (he was one of the investigating
officers) says that although the suspect did use PGP, when material was
sent out, he kept further copies on floppy. These were encrypted in
batches, and when raided there were some which had yet to be processed
and were still readable.

Also a number of hand-written notebooks gave details of the material. He
also had a "trash-can" full of 4000 pages of "deleted" email....

this fits with a pattern, that encryption is poorly applied by the bad
guys, and law enforcement can usually find damning evidence anyway.

I believe Dorothy Denning is on the list, so she may wish to contest (or
endorse) an executive summary of her survey

        http://www.cosc.georgetown.edu/~denning/crypto/cases.html

as saying, crypto is often pretty irrelevant to making a case.

- -- 
richard                      richard.clayton    @    T U R N P I K E .com
    fewer than 100 MPs still need adopting:  http://www.stand.org.uk/
"Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind" quoted in ZAMM

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