[7786] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
I foresee an increased interest in secret-sharing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matt Crawford)
Thu Sep 7 11:41:33 2000
Message-Id: <200009071251.HAA19605@gungnir.fnal.gov>
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: "Matt Crawford" <crawdad@fnal.gov>
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000 07:51:49 -0500
In the NIPC daily report for 6 Sep., I read
> (U) (InfoSec News, 5 September) The UK government officially granted
> itself broad powers [...]. Under a provision of RIP, if a company
> official is asked to surrender an encryption key to the government, that
> individual is barred by law from telling anyone, including his or her
> employer. Guidelines for this "tipping-off" offense, as it is known,
> could leave an international company completely unaware that what it
> assumes is secure company data may be under investigation by MI5. Those
> violating the tipping-off offense can face up to five years in prison
If it takes the conscious participation of 10 employees to divulge
a key when demanded, it will be that much harder to prosecute for
"tipping-off".
