An Interesting RIP Report Stage Amendment

[Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law]

I submit that a slightly more likely reading of this amendment is after
Plod asks "What other information does it protect?" then "Me" has to say
something like "it gives access to Exxon's payroll" or "this protects
vital trade secrets for BT."  No court will require Plod to do the
impossible.

A thin reed, this, and I cannot share your optimism one bit.

On Thu, 6 Jul 2000, Brian Gladman wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 

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