I have an op-ed in the Register on the history of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act following the unfortunate imprisonment of a mentally-ill man under the Act for refusing to hand over his PGP passphrase when the Met’s terror squad told him to.
Ross,
The obvious human question is,
“Why has this man been sectioned?”
He had his own business and was obviously capable of supporting himself.
From the limited amount of information supplied it sounds like he is not a danger to others.
Which raises a second question,
“What if anything has changed about his mental well being after these events started?”
If there is no change then there are serious questions as to why he is being detained.
Likewise if there is a change then there are serious questions as to why his mental state has changed and in what way and was it due to the way he was being treated by the authorities.
Do you know if he is recieving appropriate external legal assistance from those who deal with people being sectioned?
Further to all that what is known about the “officer in charge”?
Afterall serious questions came to light about the behaviour of the “officer in charge” of the operation relating to “supposed” access to child pornography via a US web site. It appears that his evidence under oath was at best questionable.
its clear they use the ‘the four hoursmen’ CP ,terrorist connections subjects etc to discredit the innocent and have the popular press dis-regard and so not look at the funamental wrongs going on while theres no light shined on these matters….
case in point, the underlining Virgin media/Detica DPI ….
we are all waiting for all the security research professionals here and the legal professionals as regards Home Office (RIPA), DBIS (Digital Britain/Economy), MoJ (PECR and ICO), EU Commission (infringement proceedings and privacy directive and Amendment 138) etc
researchers the world over will hopefuly not wait to long before they write many oppinions based on their research to Open up these Detica DPI for profit to the intense sunlight and perhaps finally get mainstream reporting and investigation going in both the Uk ,the EU nad the US…..
so what work in going on there right now ?
it seems this latest version of the ‘DPI storm’ is by far the largest mega tsunami hitting the core networks of the Uks cable and other Core infrastructure as we speak , and theres vey little real defence against this technology or the abuse and inaction of RIPA law etc being talked about once again when it needed most publicly….
interception before inspection remember, So call it what it is Deep Packet Interception in all the news coverage from now on… find and use our own 4 hoursemen to use against these people inside the Corps, and give us all your professional researchers muscle we can find and forward to EU please ASAP.
“Re: CView: ICO Does it again.
« Reply #6 on: November 29, 2009, 11:00:47 PM » Quote
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Quote from: warescouse on November 29, 2009, 10:15:05 PM
Detica has fingers in many pies, a ‘View’ for everything maybe? I also wondered whether a Detica job for Mandelson is lined up at the end of all this for services rendered? Any betting?
http://www.detica.com/images/pdfs/detica-decc-response.pdf
Peter will always be welcome at Detica HQ for services rendered.
Detica (undermining the British public since 1971)
“
opps, thats quoted from https://nodpi.org/forum/index.php/topic,2269.msg24907.html#msg24907
that should read “the four horsemen” OC please edit and delete these corrections afterwards.
Ross,
Thank you for your clear words on the issue.
One question though. You write, “a hardened criminal can use deniable encryption”. However I wonder whether there is even such a thing as deniability under RIPA III?
RIPA 49.(2)(a): “If [Eve] believes, on reasonable grounds […] that a key to the protected information is in the possession [of Alice]”
What exactly the phrase “reasonable grounds” refers to is not specified anywhere, and so it means whatever the police wants it to mean, n’est-ce pas?
So if they find any traces of software that would allow for deniability (such as TrueCrypt), they could just claim that it is plausible that the suspect has encrypted material hidden somewhere on his computer.
Please tell me I’m wrong, but that’s how it looks to me. I would be most interested to hear what you think about this.
“Reasonable suspicion” is for the courts to judge, not the police. All the police have to do is decide whether a court would in fact consider it reasonable suspicion: although it does have a somewhat catch 22 air to it, in that if a police officer suspects it, then it is a reasonable suspicion, because, well, he is a police officer…
@ Karin Kosina,
There is such a thing as provable deniability.
In which case “Reasonable suspicion” becomes a “non event” when it gets to open court (if it ever does).
Although difficult with commodity equipment a system can be designed where by you can show that neither you nor anyone else holds the key.
The usual way to do this is the system generates a random key that you never get to see and gives you a handle by which it can be used.
The downside of this is that the key is in the system so could possibly be recovered by others at some point.
This is the reason for the likes of a “dead man’s lever”. That is the key gets wipped from the system when it detects tampering or coersion etc.
The issue then is how do you avoid the “willful destruction” asspect.
Oddly this can be done quite easily in a secure manner.
So it then boils down to if the judge will accept the system or decide incorectly it’s “Hoke us poke us” because it is “beyond his ken”.
In open court you have the ability to call experts in your defence. Not so in RIPA even discussing it is a crime…
And yes there are ways around this.
The point is RIPA was written by a bunch of self interested parties with certain strengths and weaknesses. One of their strengths is “twisty maze” legislation one of their weaknesses is a grasp on the technical asspects of the subject.
If you think the legislation is “out to get you” you are without a shadow of a doubt correct.
The point of the RIPA is two fold.
The first is to clear up for authorities what they may or may not do, this is so permissive that we have people under survalence for “tea bags in the wrong bin”.
The second is to deny you any real possability of stoping the survalance legaly, and if you try to have a legislative sledge hammer to hit you with. Which is designed to rob you of any real chance to defend yourself.
RIPA is classic “self justification” “bully boy” tactics with a significant “gang attack” aproach to you deffending yourself.
Or put another way “Do as we say or your in a world of hurt”, “Fight it and your in a world of hurt”.
We actually have legislation to stop this “protectionisum crime” in most asspects of life (think money lending etc).
So those that thought RIPA up know without doubt that what they have done is morraly wrong but then you are talking about the morally bankrupt, corupted power and self beliefe beyond the abilities of most to understand.
Oh and if you beat them expect a major vindictive “hissy fit” as losing at their own game and thus being held up as being “incompetant” in the eyes of their peers is worse than a cesation of their mortal existance for them…