 |
We don't care
if you have forgotten the password
Give us the key or we'll break your legs! |
An animal rights activist has been ordered to hand over her encryption
keys to the authorities.
Section Three of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA)
came into force at the start in October 2007, seven years after the
original legislation passed through parliament. Intended primarily to
deal with terror suspects, it allows police to demand encryption keys or
provide a clear text transcript of encrypted text.
Failure to comply can result in up to two years imprisonment for
cases not involving national security, or five years for terrorism
offences and the like. Orders can be made to turn over data months or
even years old.
The contentious measure, introduced after years of consultation, was
sold to Parliament as a necessary tool for law enforcement in the fight
against organised crime and terrorism.
But an animal rights activist is one of the first people at the
receiving end of a notice to give up encryption keys. Her computer was
seized by police in May, and she has been given 12 days to hand over a
pass-phrase to unlock encrypted data held on the drive - or face the
consequences.
The woman, who claims to have not used encryption, relates her
experiences in an anonymous
posting on Indymedia:
Now apparently they have found some encrypted files on my computer
(which was stolen by police thugs in May this year) which they think
they have 'reasonable suspicion' to pry into using the excuse of
'preventing or detecting a crime'
Now I have been 'invited' (how nice, will there be tea and biccies?)
to reveal my keys to the police so they can look at these files. If I do
not comply and tell them to keep their great big hooters out of my
private affairs I could be charged under RIPA.
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Lots
of nasty things happen on the internet. So the US National Security
Agency (NSA), charged with stopping people doing nasty things, has
decided it would be best to have a copy of it. The entire web, that is. 
Hushmail,
a longtime provider of encrypted web-based email, markets itself by
saying that not even a Hushmail employee with access to our servers
can read your encrypted e-mail, since each message is uniquely encoded
before it leaves your computer.
British and Dutch police have shut down a "widely-used" source of
illegally-downloaded music.
Disgruntled
fans of Sheffield Wednesday who vented their dissatisfaction with the
football club's bigwigs in anonymous internet postings may face
expensive libel claims after the chairman, chief executive and five
directors won a high-court ruling last week forcing the owner of a
website to reveal their identity.
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