ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Email Privacy eating software

2000-07-19 23:40:03
In message 
<4(_dot_)3(_dot_)1(_dot_)2(_dot_)20000719011133(_dot_)00ca2ea0(_at_)pop3(_dot_)ipverse(_dot_)com>,
 Matt Holdrege wr
ites:


I'm not sure what "sounds a bit overmuch" to you.  Have a look at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F150000/150465.stm

How is this different than looking in your bags for porn magazines or 
videotapes? How is looking at your stored email different than looking at 
your paper correspondence?

Leaving out their technical limitations and assumptions (the whole 
world doesn't run Windows), the problem is that you don't know what 
they're really doing.  Indeed, the Customs officers may not -- can you 
tell from the wrapper what an arbitrary piece of software does?  A 
magazine is fairly obviously just that -- but there's a lot of very 
sensitive data on many people's laptops.  Perhaps the British 
government can be trusted -- but I can name a number of others, 
including nominal democracies, that I wouldn't trust.

As I stated in my previous post "unless provoked". Customs in many 
countries can be provoked to look at those things. What makes a computer 
special? Why single out the U.K. government when many others do essentially 
the same thing.

Apart from the question of what it takes to "provoke" a Customs officer 
-- skin color? -- the issue with the UK in particular is the lack of 
any checks on the powers of the House of Commons.  Usually, they show 
restraint and common sense -- but not always.  (As an aside, one of the 
Customs officials I encountered in Australia, after hearing why I was 
there, opined that the Internet was really a tool of the Devil, and 
that it was somehow related to the Mark of the Beast.  I decided not to 
argue, not even to point out that my religion knows nothing of Beasts 
nor marks thereof.)

                --Steve Bellovin




<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>