[117543] in Cypherpunks
Fwd: Observer 5/9/99: "E-squad launched to crack criminal codes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Sun Sep 5 13:33:39 1999
Mime-Version: 1.0
Message-Id: <v04210141b3f853382a09@[204.167.100.144]>
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 13:05:21 -0400
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
--- begin forwarded text
From: "Caspar Bowden" <cb@fipr.org>
To: "Ukcrypto (E-mail)" <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Subject: Observer 5/9/99: "E-squad launched to crack criminal codes on the net"
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 11:19:45 +0100
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Importance: Normal
Sender: owner-ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Reply-To: ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/uk_news/story/0,3879,79397,00.html
E-squad launched to crack criminal codes on the net
Government starts £20 million anti-encryption force amid claims that US has
Windows super key
Links, reports and background: more about privacy on the net
Richard Reeves, Society Editor
Sunday September 5, 1999
A specialist code-cracking unit is being set up to counter the growing use
of encrypted e-mail messages by drug-runners and paedophile rings.
The unit, with funding of £15-20 million, will draw staff from the
Government's communications centres at GCHQ - but will also headhunt top
code designers from the private sector. 'You could compare it to cracking
the Enigma code during World War Two,' said one senior Government source.
'We need an Alan Turing for the Internet age.'
Big salaries will be offered to lure high-flying programmers into the unit,
which will be given a deliberately anodyne name - almost certainly the
Government Telecommunications Advisory Centre.
'The major criminal organisations, especially the drugs cartels, are
incredibly sophisticated. They have the money to have whole departments
working on codes. For now the encryption problem is not huge - but it is
going to grow and we need to be ready for it,' said the source. Combined
with fingerprint access, encrypted e-mail messages are likely to become the
communication of choice for serious criminals, according to the intelligence
services.
Legitimate businesses are also poised to use encryption to protect
market-sensitive information, with two-thirds of firms saying that security
fears were the biggest barrier to joining the e-commerce revolution,
according to a Department of Trade and Industry survey.
Since the Government abandoned plans to force all users of encryption to
deposit a key with a 'trusted third party' - a move fiercely opposed by
business - attention has focused on beefing up the detection of electronic
data by law enforcement agencies. 'We are ending up with one of the most
liberal regimes in the world,' said a DTI official. 'This makes interception
of messages and rapid decoding vital.'
Experts at the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS), which will
also provide staff and support for the unit, said that gathering real-time
information was crucial to the police and customs. 'Given enough time and
computer power, most codes can be cracked,' an NCIS expert said. 'But
cracking a code two weeks after a message has been intercepted is more often
than not completely useless, given that details of deals, time and place,
are what we need. Real-time information is gold-dust.'
The intelligence and law enforcement services hope the team of code-crackers
will help electronic eavesdropping as fruitful as phone-tapping has been in
recent decades. During 1996 and 1997, interception of communications -
almost entirely phone taps - resulted in 1,200 arrests, seizure of 115
tonnes of illegal drugs and 450 firearms, according the Home Office. More
than half of the 2,600 interception warrants issued by the Home Secretary
resulted in arrests. Some of these are already the result of e-mail
interception, but the Home Office does not advertise the success of
'e-taps'.
Later this year the DTI is introducing a Bill on electronic commerce, which
will put in place a voluntary system of accreditation for firms using the
Internet to conduct business. The Bill will also give law enforcement
agencies the right to demand the computer key to an encryption 'key', having
been granted a warrant as part of a criminal investigation. But intelligence
officers said this power was of limited value because demanding an
encryption key tells criminals they are under investigation.
The Government will be at pains to allay fears of a Big Brother state
intercepting personal e-mail. 'The idea that we have any interest in the
communications of anyone other than serious criminals, or indeed the
resources, is laughable,' said the NCIS source
--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
