"Tipping-off" revisited

[Q G Campbell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Clayton [mailto:richard@highwayman.com]
> Sent: 08 March 2001 15:48
> To: UKcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: "Tipping-off" revisited
>=20
> [...in reponse to Quentin Campbell who said...]
>=20
> >However I have found nothing in the Act itself that
> >prevents the secrecy provision in a s.49 notice specifically=20
> precluding
> >the revocation of a certificate.
>=20
> I don't think you'd expect to.
>=20
> The relevant part of the Act is s54(1)(b) and it allows for a
> provision.. "to keep secret the giving of the notice, its contents and
> the things done in pursuance of it".
>=20
> I can't see that the revocation of a certificate would be an action in
> pursuance of a notice that required that a message was put into an
> intelligible form or (s50(3)(c)) the provision of keys. Hence s54
> wouldn't apply ... any more than it could contain a provision=20
> requiring
> the receiver to thereafter walk on the cracks in the pavement.

Richard is the only one who has addressed directly the issue of the
content of a secrecy provision in a s.49 notice. But I disagree with his
conclusion.  :-)

The point I was trying to make is that it only needs the issuing
official to share my view on the likely consequences of a key revocation
for him to insert a clause in the secrecy provision notice to explicitly
prevent the recipient from revoking a key. Put another way, if I was
that official then that is how I would word the notice!

Where in the Act does it say an official cannot take such action?

To Plods way of thinking it is more likely that an official will include
such a clause precisely because the lawyers argue that key revocation is
*not* tipping-off. Inserting such a clause takes away any defence that
the recipient of the s.49/s.54 may have as to the "innocent" nature of a
key revocation. He has been told, in writing, *not* to do it and if he
disregards this then his actions can no longer be "innocent".

One assumes that RIPA will be used in some very sensitive and important
cases and that the authorities will go to almost any lengths to prevent
such operations from being compromised.=20

This is evidenced by their being a significantly higher penalty for
compromising an operation [by tipping-off] than from merely refusing to
cooperate with it [by failing to disclose a key].

Quentin