R v.Lambert House of Lords and RIP reverse-burden-of-proof

[Peter Tomlinson]

On 15 July 2001 Owen Lewis wrote:
>
> As already intimated, I would walk smartly away from a national PKI and
> would recommend other to do likewise. If such comes into being, it will
> rapidly become much broader in use than simply for the NHS. If such a
system
> comes into being, I will either refuse to use it or, depending on the form
> it takes, use it only as an outer wrapper for such a cryptosystem as I
> choose to use fo my security needs.
>

At a recent Eddie Bleasdale Netproject seminar, one speaker showed a diagram
of the proposed central govt PKI, with a captive (private) CA providing
certificates for about half a million govt users. How far into, for example,
the NHS, is that likely to stretch?

The CITU 'Framework for Information Age Government: Smart Cards' is
mandatory guidance for central govt depts, and states that the Digital
certificate 'should be in accordance with X.509 Version 3' and 'will be
issued, and digitally signed by, the issuing party or a trusted third
party'. The private key is to be held in a smart card, and that card itself
must do the signing. This all permits a set of trusted third parties to be
involved in a national PKI scheme - and tScheme has been set up to give
credence to the CAs. Note that this document is due for revision very soon.

Peter