Letwin wants increased penalties for refusal to decrypt

[cryptlist@ubik.demon.co.uk]

richard@highwayman.com wrote:
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> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2196734.stm
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> This is a piece about Oliver Letwin (shadow Home Secretary) calling for
> "grooming" (that's what you and I used to call seduction, but it's much
> more scary if there's a new word for it) to be made illegal.

In the interview he was asked to explain the word.  Which was a little strange in itself, as the item was introduced as Letwin wanting to outlaw "internet grooming" by pedophiles.

I would think a simpler offence addressing attempted seduction of a child, whether in person or by [chatroom/email/...] proxy, would be better.  

> However buried away in the middle is the single sentence:
> 
>         He also wants increased penalties for paedophiles who refuse to
>         unlock encrypted information being stored on the internet.
>
> Since we still don't have Part III of RIP 2000 in force yet I'm unclear
> what sort of increase this would be... but presumably the idea is that
> you'd get more than the 2 years maximum of s53(5) if the information you
> refused to decrypt was said to be illegal images of children.
> 
> Quite how anyone knows that they're illegal images of children if you
> refuse to decrypt them (or why they need to be decrypted if people know
> what they are) is one of those philosophical puzzles that so bedevil
> proposals to fiddle around with penalty levels.

Politicians are rarely very logical, but especially when they try to hitch themselves to the coat tails of a current outrage/crime.

> Myself, I think he should probably be more interested in what
> paedophiles are storing on their hard disks than "on the Internet"; but
> I don't suppose it is entirely fair to read too much into a sound-byte.

My recollection is that Letwin discussed several topics including "internet grooming" and "encrypted files".  I think the journo for the BBC web pages has mixed things up a little.

Tony Naggs