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UK Government Wants a Backdoor Into Windows

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the there-are-plenty-of-worms-available dept.

REBloomfield writes "The BBC is reporting that the British Government is working with Microsoft in order to gain backdoor access to hard drives encrypted by the forthcoming Windows Vista file system. Professor Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, urged the Government to contact Microsoft over fears that evidence could be lost by suspects claiming to have forgotten their encryption key."

3 of 598 comments (clear)

  1. China & PGP by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative
    Well, to be fair, a few people do believe that Microsoft has a backdoor built into their OS that would allow the United States Government to shut down all Chinese Government PCs running Windows.

    Oh, and there are a few people who also consider encryption a matter of freedom of speech.

    Funny the U.S. government targets Phil Zimmermann for three years but hardly raises so much as an eye when an encryption enabled OS is distributed. From Mr. Zimmermann's homepage:
    Philip R. Zimmermann is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy, an email encryption software package. Originally designed as a human rights tool, PGP was published for free on the Internet in 1991. This made Zimmermann the target of a three-year criminal investigation, because the government held that US export restrictions for cryptographic software were violated when PGP spread worldwide.
    I think that his "criminal activity" was creating an encryption tool that allowed messages to be encrypted beyond what the United States government was capable of deciphering in a timely manner. Does anyone know if this is still enforced? Does anyone know what the max key length is now if it is? I think it was something like 128 bits (that the government could crack) around the time of PGP.
    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. Truecrypt by ivan+kk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let them try.
    We have alternatives.
    http://www.truecrypt.org/

  3. What's the point when you have RIP? by TheEvilOverlord · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't really see why the need this anyway.

    The government has the RIP Act (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000) which allows them to detain you, with a press gagging order if you refuse to hand over the encryption key they need to decrypt your data. If you refuse or claim you have forgotton and they don't believe you, then it's two years in gaol for you sonny jim.

    They only really got this into law because most people don't understand it. Oh and don't forget that since this government came to power the amount of time they can hold you, uncharged, under the terrorism act has gone from 7 to 28 days... and the police want 90! Yes ninety days, 3 months, 2160 hours!