Innocent Until Proven Guilty?
(U.K Crypto Bill Could Make Crypto Users Criminals, Page 2)
By Bruce Tober
February 21, 2000
FIPR's Legal officer, Nicholas Bohm, said, "It's probable that
when the bill refers to the 'key' it also means the passphrase rather than the techies' view of a key. But the
Home Office [representative], by cutting you off where he did, is obviously indicating he doesn't have an answer
to the point.
"I think they now admit they have to prove you, at some time had the key, but if they once
prove that you have ever had the key, then in effect, it's going to be up to you to prove you no longer have it."
Asked if that doesn't mean they're requiring the accused to prove a negative "something, which by definition
is logically an impossibility," Bohm said. "Quite. You certainly can't do it in any irrefutable way."
The bill now goes to a second reading early next month, then a committee stage and report stage,
and finally a third reading in the House of Commons before introduction in the House of Lords, where it then goes
on to a similar series of steps before going back to the Commons for consideration of the Lords' amendments and
a final vote.
In addition, many of the opponents of the bill, cite one of its most draconian provisions, that
contained in Section 50 of Part III, the so-called "tipping off provisions." That section says if anyone
who is asked for their keys tells anyone at all about the request or anything related to it, that person would
be subject to a five-year prison sentence, as would anyone the person "tips off" about the demand, investigation
etc.
"This type of notice will inevitably be directed at, and make criminal, the innocent half
of any conversation," said David Swarbrick, a lawyer in the North of England and a long-time student of crypto
and crypto laws and a subscriber to the uk.crypto e-mail list.
"To read the criminal's post," Swarbrick explains, "say from a pedophile to a
young girl he is trying to corrupt, the police must use these extraordinary and terrifying powers, and scare into
submission, not the criminal, but the victim. It is the victim who gets threatened with five years imprisonment
for revealing that her private key has been obtained, and who may not tell this terrible secret, for example, to
her parents."
Finally, according to Bowden, if it becomes law, "this will poison British e-commerce".
Germany is one such country that might prohibit electronic commerce with the U.K, it prohibits the use of or transactions
with those who use escrowed or otherwise insecure crypto keys, which it very likely would consider U.K. keys to
be if RIP is enacted into law.
Bruce Tober, is a 30-year veteran
journalist, born in Brooklyn N.Y., he's lived and worked in the United Kingdom for eight years, specializing in
coverage of IT news. His website is http://www.star-dot-star.co.uk.
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