Ha - yes an another annoying adobe link - thought you might spot that.
The actual PDF document is very interesting though. The implication seems to be that although it is not an offence to store documents in an encrypted form - it is an offence to refuse to decrypt them if required to under the act. If we didn't have the key - by building a system where only the user was able to decrypt stored documents - then we may escape prosecution under that particular law.
Whether we could be held responsible for aiding and abetting criminals by creating a system that could be misused is moot. I suspect not - as the authorities always have the option of arresting the actual suspect and forcing them to reveal their key. The powers to force sysadmins to reveal keys is simply so that the authorities can spy on suspected criminals without alerting them to the fact - which is why there is an extra "tipping off" offence that the sysadmins can be threatened with.
Of course this all supposes that we can build such a system. It may not be feasible - unless the users were particularly tech-savvy. There is also the problem of users losing their key file (or forgetting thier passphrase) and not being able to have a "reset" - meaning that all messages and files on the server would be effectively lost.
It sounds like we could have an interesting debate on Thursday (and yes, I hope to be there).
Dave
________________________________________ From: manchester-bounces@lists.fsfe.org [manchester-bounces@lists.fsfe.org] on behalf of Anna Morris [say.hello.to.anna@googlemail.com] Sent: 25 January 2012 13:09 To: manchester Subject: [Manchester] Fwd: Re: Encrypted mail UK legality
On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Sam Tuke <samtuke@fsfe.orgmailto:samtuke@fsfe.org> wrote: On Tuesday 24 January 2012 20:19:10 D.Bolton U0970268 wrote:
Takling of RIPA - have a look at this:
"Adobe provide a free online tool which converts PDF files to text. To use this service visit http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html (new window)"
Gah - another advertising 'bug' to add to the list.
that was the funny bit? Was I supposed to look at something else :S !!
Sam.
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