U.K. waits on Key Escrow

gyges writes "According to the BBC, UK officials have backed down on their encryption-key escrow efforts in order to promote eCommerce within the UK. However they also report "uncertainty as how committed the UK government is to promoting e-commerce. " Wired weighs-in as well. "

Re:Escrow non issue

[True Dork]

and yes, I misspelled decrypt!

Re:Zack brings up an interesting topic

[Alan Cox]

This is already occuring. The FBI now has to chose
between US citizens using Indian etc crypto which may have holes in it favouring non US governments and letting people use US crypto freely, where at least they get to put most of the trapdoors in.

It always seems...

[PaulJS]

It always seems that whoever is in government they always come up with some strange ideas which always do more harm than good. I'm glad that they are resting on the issue of Key Escrow at the moment but they have to realise that it must NEVER go ahead:
1) Because the people who it is meant to catch - the criminals - can easily work round the system by not using keys that are approved by the UK government.
2) It'll scare any companies wanting to set up their ecommerce business into moving to a country where there's no threat of key escrow being introduced.
I also believe that as the Internet is international individual countries shouldn't interfere this way as any legislation only affects their own country and therefore puts them at a disadvantage.

Of course the Internet is not the only way the UK government is risking putting UK based companies (and workers) at a disadvantage. A well publicised problem recently is the government putting up diesel prices as well as raising the taxes haulage firms have to pay. The diesel prices made public transport more expensive (as buses run on diesel) and the government is meant to be encouraging the use of public transport. As for the haulage firms they may locate overseas and all the UK based employees will either have to move with them or lose their jobs.

--

Re:Bah.

[gavinhall]

Posted by Statt:

In terms of promoting e-commerce.. I think the gov'ts should just concentrate on the issues of trust. Implementing Public Key Infrastructures that their constituents can use.

Re:Escrow non issue

[Shandon]

And significantly, you may not care whether or not Uncle Sam (or any other government) can read your online commmunications, but I explicitly care when my competition just has to make a little campaign contribution and my email's appear on his desk... THAT is a scenario that I can envision and makes me just a leetle pyronoid :)

Shandon

Re:Escrow non issue

[Steve B]

And significantly, you may not care whether or not Uncle Sam (or any other government) can read your online commmunications, but I explicitly care when my competition just has to make a little campaign contribution and my email's appear on his desk...

Don't you think it's a bit over the top to suggest that somebody might sell the government's copy of your key? Why, next you'll be suggesting that the leader of the Free World sold nuclear secrets to the ChiComs for campaign cash!

Er... never mind.

Zack brings up an interesting topic

[BigUnit]

What about legal business?

Lets say i start a new company called Scrambling Inc which develops 1000 bit encryption. Next, seeing that there are export issues regarding the release of my software, I decide to move offshore to say Ireland (which has NO encryption laws). I then begin to market my software globally to any one who wants it. How is the US going to stop this?

To answer the question about how the govt will know about which encryption I'm using by simply descrambling my message:

That implies that every single packet flying throuogh every single back-bone will have to be parsed, reassemble, then decrypted with all known decryption algos'. Hmmm....

Not trying to start flame wars here, its just my 2 pennies worth..

BU.

Re:Escrow non issue

[Zack]

--------Begin-PGP-Encoded-Message

Well.. that's one way... The encryption software on the other end has to have some way of knowing how the messages are being encrypted. They've got headers and other types of information... Somewhat along the lines of mailing someone an image without a trailing .jpg, .gif, or .bmp. They can still figure it out...

> Again, how is the export policy going to
> affect this?

How about for legal businesses? Those with offices in the US, the UK, and Tibet? They develop their own "Uber-Encryption" but due to export restrictions can't give it to their other offices...

The point is: Any sort of crypto can be identified and broken... all in a matter of time... by _legally_ being able to use STRONG crypto, that time could be an inhibiting factor.

Explain to me how this is a non-issue?

I want to be able to use encryption and know that uncle sam won't be able to read it at will

Re:Escrow non issue

[Zack]

> you may not care whether or not Uncle Sam (or
> any other government) can read your online
> commmunications

This is my point.. I don't like the fact that they can read my mail.. I don't like the fact that anything we do electronically can be and is monitored.. I don't like it AT ALL.

I also don't like knowing that there are so many laws about strong crypto. Knowing that uncle sam will show up at my door with large guns and make me disappear for while if I use crypto they can't break makes me nervous.

That's why I want strong crypto with no Escrow to be legal. That's what I've been saying.

Re:Escrow non issue

[True Dork]

How is the gov't going to know what encryption you use? They'll know if they cant decyrypt it. :P

Escrow non issue

[BigUnit]

This key escrow issue hasn't gone away yet? The only people who won't be using any key/escrow 3rd person descrambling capable encryption are the people who want truly private coms. There are plenty of other cryptos out there. I can't believe there is still a debate about this.. this horse be dead.

BU.

Re:Escrow non issue

[BigUnit]

"This horse is not dead until the government agrees to get off our backs and let us use strong crypto for anything we want."

We can use any kind of crypto we want. How is the gov't going to know which kind of crypto i'm using simply by seeing the scrambled message?

"so we can communicate securely with people who aren't in the US"

Again, how is the export policy going to affect this?

If I want truly private comms then they will be. There are many many different techniques for encrypting data that can be found in many different places

this is a non-issue...


BU

Bah.

[Grendel Drago]

This is all going to happen again. Anyone reading this recognizes it. Turn turn turn, UK gets its head out of the sand just as AU's putting it back there. I remember the fluff some folks were spewing around here (US) a while back about escrow. And we complain when China steals our secrets. Feh.

Whew. Ramble. More cogently: I suppose it's good to have another nation enjoying free e-commerce. (Buzzword! Slap me!) But make no mistake, they'll be back again soon.

Telecom is a great and wondrous thing, with no stupid laws needed, unless you're a moron. But then again, look who we all elect...

-Grendel Drago

Re:Escrow non issue

[Zack]

This horse is not dead until the government agrees to get off our backs and let us use strong crypto for anything we want. It's not "over" until we're allowed to make strong crypto and export it, so we can communicate securely with people who aren't in the US...

The debate is that lots of governments seem intent on trying to keep the public from using strong encryption. That was the can continue to steal the patents...