Electronic writing, signatures

[Nicholas Bohm]

At 16:01 31-12-2001 +0000, Ben Laurie wrote:
>Nicholas Bohm wrote:
>> 
>> The Law Commission has published its advice to the Government on the need
>> for reform of the law to accommodate electronic writing and electronic
>> signatures.
>
>I notice that in 3.31 they include mention of CAs w.r.t. digital
>signatures:
>
>"By using a public key encryption system involving a certification
>authority a
>digital signature can give a high level of assurance that an electronic
>communication has been sent by the person possessing the ‘private key’;
>that it
>came from a particular individual; and that it was not changed en
>route."
>
>This seems to me to be entirely inappropriate and only serves to put
>barriers in the way of alternatives to CA based PKI. Although a CA is
>one way of validating the private key, it is far from being the only (or
>even the best) way to do it, particularly given the well-known avoidance
>of liability CAs practice.
>
>Are they interested in feedback at all?

Yes, on consultation papers.  In this case they are publishing advice given
to Government, and I doubt if they have any macinery for dealing with
feedback.  The bit you quote is not legal advice, of course, and is no
doubt merely repeating back to Government the assumptions they were given
as the basis for their advice.  It will take quite a while for the
misconceptions to wash through.

Regards

Nicholas

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PGP RSA 1024 bit public key ID: 0x08340015.  Fingerprint:
9E 15 FB 2A 54 96 24 37  98 A2 E0 D1 34 13 48 07
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5248 1320 B42E 84FC 1E8B  A9E6 0912 AE66 899D D7FF