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I’m reminded of the hyperbole - which I fell for - around the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act around the turn of the millennium. It provides a legal mec
by jrmg 3y ago
I’m reminded of the hyperbole - which I fell for - around the Regulation of Investigatory Powers act around the turn of the millennium.
It provides a legal mechanism for authorities to require that individuals disclose encryption keys for encrypted data that was legally obtained or intercepted (i.e. with a warrant) by those authorities, and there are penalties (jail time) for refusing to do so.
The worry at the time was that random data is indistinguishable from encrypted content, so there might be times when people are jailed when they don’t even have the keys because there’s no encrypted data - just random bytes! Or, what happens if you lose the keys?
The reality is that there’s a court system that ‘regulates’ all this. No-one is going to be jailed unless the courts find that they are not providing keys they really do have. Of course, in a conspiracy where the authorities and the courts are all colluding, they could jail people pretending that they knew they had the keys - but there are far easier ways for the authorities to do this than some elaborate scheme with fake encrypted data.
At the time I was fully convinced that it was a step down a slippery slope to authoritarianism. Really, it was just bringing the ‘virtual’ world into line with the physical one.
[I suspect there are a few here who were also around at the time and still believe it’s all a nefarious governmental plot - I’d ask them to show where, in the 23 years since it passed, harm - or suspicion of harm - has happened].
Now, maybe this is different. I certainly don’t want end to end encryption to be banned. But there’s a bit of a ‘cried wolf’ happening in my brain.
- jl6 3y agoAn interesting RIP case here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11479831 A person received a 16 week prison sentence for not disclosing a password. In the context, it’s possible that had he disclosed the password, police would have discovered material that would have attracted a far more severe punishment. So one might argue that the RIP was too weak, and failed to compel disclosure of the password (four months in jail is light in the circumstances).
- amiga386 3y agoThis guy went to prison for a year and 2 months, for not disclosing his Facebook password: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45365464 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-45365464 He was accused of murder. Ultimately, he was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years: https://www.hampshire.police.uk/news/hampshire/news/news/2019/july/lucy-mchugh-murder--stephen-nicholson-found-guilty/ https://www.hampshire.police.uk/news/hampshire/news/news/201... And then there's the other direction, which I must confess I thought would have involved the RIP Act but ultimately didn't, instead it used anti-terrorism legislation. A French employee of radical French publishing house that the French government is very cross with, arrived in Britain for a book fair. He was arrested and held for 24 hours using anti-terror legislation. The cops also confiscated his phone and laptop, and held onto them for more than 10 weeks, and they threatened him "with never being able to travel overseas if he failed to hand over a password to his confiscated iPhone and MacBook": https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watchdog-investigating-arrest-french-publisher-ernest-moret https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/21/police-watch... The general concern is that France is not allowed to do that, so asked Britain to do it for them, and Britain did it. There wasn't even a hint that he'd broken the law in Britain, and all that was wanted was for the French government to get ahold of the contents of his phone and laptop. Perhaps this is the only reason (that they had absolutely nothing on him) that they didn't twist the knife and use the RIP Act to imprison him simply for not unlocking his devices for them: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/19/french-publisher-arrested-in-london-was-asked-about-support-for-macron https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/19/french-publi...