An Interesting RIP Report Stage Amendment

[Brian Gladman]

The Government amendments for the RIP report stage are now available.


We have got some security for keys at last but there is an even more
interesting amendment as follows in respect of GAK:

"The matters to be taken into account in considering whether
the requirement of subsection (2)(b) is satisfied in the case of
any direction shall include the extent and nature of any protected
information, in addition to the protected information in respect of
which the disclosure requirement is imposed, to which the key
is also a key."

This clause seems to say that the authorities must take into account
***other*** information that a seized key might protect. Since the
authorities have no right to such information (not even a right to know
whether it exists) I can only see one way in which they can take this into
account.

Plod: "I wan't your key";
Me: "If you seize my key you are obliged by law to take account of all the
information that my key protects";
Plod: "What other information does it protect?";
Me: "You have no right to know and I am not going to tell you but you are
obliged by law to take account of it";
Plod: "How can I do that if you won't tell me what it is I must take account
of?";
Me: "By not seizing my key".

If this is an honest amendment it does seem to remove most of the GAK threat
against the private key components of of the key pairs used in public key
cryptography.

    Brian