Some corporate reaction

[Mary Kirwan]

Why avoid Ireland?. Our proposed bill says nothing even remotely insidious.

Mary Kirwan

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Ramsbottom [mailto:donald@ramsbottom.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2000 8:42 AM
To: ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Subject: Some corporate reaction


Well gentlefolk, last night I had to give a briefing on RIP to the Global
Security mamnager of a very large multinational telco/isp/loadsaotherthings.
I explained in very reasoned and neutral (yes I know that sounds unlikely,
but occasionally it happens) terms the basics of RIP.

To say he was stunned and amazed was an understatement. He wanted me to
recap and a few hours later having been through it line by line he was still
incredulous. I then had to email a full copy of the act to US in house
counsel and the CEO with brief comments.

When it was over it was the off the cuff comments which sent shivers down my
back, things such as no trust in UK, investment elsewhere, recommend to
corporate clients they avoid UK, Ireland and Germany look nice, may have to
downsize operations, unacceptable risk to global infrastructure. But lastly
and most tellingly I thought, does the UK want to commit economic suicide?

Now these were not the ramblings of a deranged parochial past his sell by
date solicitor, but the immediate thoughts of someone who gets paid obscene
amounts of money to analyze threats etc, and the reaction was not good.

Now industry has until now been very quiet on the subject as the lawyers who
advise the companies do not understand either crypto or the full impact of
RIP on systems etc. When you tell a global player what is going on so they
understand the reaction is  as described above.
The trouble is in house counsel and the people you need to get at usually
rely on other each other or the standard party line given by the Government.

Any way will someone at the HO just consider the economic impact of an
undefined, temporally infinite access tool with built in stealth/suppression
capability on the core business of a bank or insurance company or for that
matter any company. All those clients suddenly realising that their details
may be covertly released by the bank to the authorities, is bad enough but
to never be told is even worse. Please just think about it!

Donald Ramsbottom LL.B, BA (Hons).

RAMSBOTTOM & Co. Solicitors

Internet Law & Global Cryptology Law Specialists