42 days detention: do not resuscitate
Won’t someone give the argument for 42 days internment some soup or something? It’s looking very sick. I’m worried it won’t last much longer. When you look at the calibre of some its carers, no wonder it’s looking neglected.
Take Home Secretary ‘Jacqui’ Smith for instance, I’m not sure I’d trust her with a goldfish let alone national security. This following is an exchange from yesterday’s the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Bill. It’s also a welcome example of the Opposition doing some, you know, actual opposing.
One of the reasons Smith wants an extension to internment powers is because terrorists encrypt data on their computers which can take time to decrypt…
Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend has considerable expertise in information technology, and she is right of course—not just in the examples that I have given but in other ways—to say that technology is becoming more sophisticated. Notwithstanding the changes that we have made to the law to help investigators to crack encrypted information, it is becoming more complex, and terrorists are learning lessons and using that technology.
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con): To deal with this problem, in 2000, a criminal offence of withholding passwords and encryption keys to hard drives was passed into law. The offence of using such things for terrorism has been increased recently. How often has that offence been used in terrorist cases?
Jacqui Smith: I do not know the answer to that question, but I will make sure that the right hon. Gentleman gets a response. However, what I was saying was that notwithstanding that change in the law, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) was making an important point about the development of technology. What we know about terrorists and their plots is that they are increasingly making use of those developments in technology.
David Davis: I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way a second time. Her argument is that the terrorists are using more and more complex techniques, which are difficult for the state to deal with, yet she cannot tell us whether the state has used the proper legal apparatus and criminal charges to overcome the problem. If she cannot make that judgment, how on earth can she judge how many days she needs?
Jacqui Smith: I am sorry that I gave way to the right hon. Gentleman again.
Not as sorry as she’s going to be, one hopes. Still, with a level of debating skills like that you can see how she’s risen as far as she has. Sleep easier, Britain. Get well soon, 42 days. You’re in the best hands.
(Via Simon Carr)
Posted on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
| See also • About the time they called me Jacqui (updated) • Iraq: a meaty issue • Mad about the boys |
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Filed under Civil liberties, Human rights, New Labour, T.W.A.T., The home front |
My memory of my encryption algorithm lectures are a bit fuzzy, but isn’t brute force decryption of data encrypted using any reasonably modern algorithm computationally infeasible within a reasonable time period - and by reasonable I mean years - such that an extra 14 days really isn’t going to be of any use at all if encryption is the issue; either the suspect gives you their password/key or you don’t get the encrypted information while it might be useful, its that simple.
Your memory is essentially correct, provided the encryption key is sufficiently large. How large? Only the NSA (and its wholly-owned subsidiary, GCHQ) knows for sure. But 4096 bits is probably good enough.
However, listening to Radio 4 this morning, I heard an MP point out that the act that makes withholding encryption keys an offence also provides for indefinite detention, until such time as the keys are obtained or the encryption is cracked. That’s fucking forever, if necessary.
If only we could get Jacqui Smith detained indefinitely, preferably with a ball gag firmly in place.
Any idea where I might find that MP on the Radio 4 listen again? Can you remember what time he was on? I’d be interested in hearing him.
A quick glance at the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 gives us this:
I like to know where the indefinite detention thing comes from.
It must have been sometime between 6.30 and 7.30, since that’s when I listen to it in the morning at home. And it was either this morning or yesterday morning.
A quick Google scan supports your findings, and generally indicates that even the two-year punishment is part of a section of the Act that hasn’t been brought into force yet. So maybe the MP was talking through his hat.
Sorry I can’t be more precise. Two or three more drinks and I won’t remember it happened at all….
How secure do you want it? How about Pretty Good Privacy?
To the best of publicly available information, there is no known method which will allow a person or group to break PGP encryption by cryptographic, or computational means. [source]