http://www.nytimes.com/techweb/TW_U_K_Crypto_Policy_May_Have_Hidden_Agenda.html June 3, 1999 U.K. Crypto Policy May Have Hidden Agenda Filed at 5:06 a.m. EDT By Madeleine Acey for TechWeb, CMPnet Despite its abandonment of key escrow, the U.K. could be counting on the ignorance of new Internet users to provide law enforcement easy access to private communications, according to privacy campaigners. Following a meeting in London on Wednesday, where ISPs drafted a code of practice for protecting user privacy, ISP and civil liberties groups both derided British and European Union attempts to regulate the use of encryption, caching and unsolicited email. ISP organizations, such as the London Internet Exchange -- or LINX -- described government policy as "extremely stupid," "misguided" and "infeasible." But some said they found it hard to believe incompetence was behind it. LINX chairman Keith Mitchell said the latest version of proposed legislation regarding law enforcement access to encrypted email and computer files was based on a "misguided conception" that ISPs would provide users with encryption. A senior government official said last week the government expected most warrants demanding keys to encrypted material would be served on service providers. "The only encryption of any use on the Internet is end-to-end. The keys are generated between the users. All the ISP is going to see is an encrypted data stream," Mitchell said. "I still don't know a single Home Office employee that has an email address," he said. But of the encryption warrant policy, he said the government "either doesn't understand or is deliberately misunderstanding." "I think they are deliberate," said Yaman Akdeniz of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties. "They don't want to give away what they want to do." He said there was a lot of pressure on lawmakers from the National Criminal Intelligence Service, which wanted easy access. "The Home Office believes users will go to [third parties], like the Post Office, to get keys," said Nicholas Bohm, spokesman for the Foundation for Information Policy Research. "They should not be promoting a policy where private keys are generated by anybody but the user." He, along with Akdeniz, said it was possible the government was planning to create a new market, favorable to easy law enforcement access, where new Internet users -- unaware of the tradition of free user-to-user encryption -- would go to "trusted third parties" for encryption services because they were endorsed by the government as safe. "If these new services are there, many people will use them," Akdeniz said. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: OSAll [www.aviary-mag.com]
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