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Encryption

In UK, Two Convicted of Refusing To Decrypt Data 554

Posted by kdawson from the no-pleading-the-fifth dept.
ACKyushu clues us to recent news out of the UK, where two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years. There is uncertainty in that the names of the people convicted were not released; and without those names, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was unable to track down details of the cases. "Failure to comply with a section 49 notice carries a sentence of up to two years jail plus fines. Failure to comply during a national security investigation carries up to five years jail. ... Of the 15 individuals served, 11 did not comply with the notices. Of the 11, seven were charged and two convicted. Sir Christopher [Rose, the government's Chief Surveillance Commissioner] did not report whether prosecutions failed or are pending against the five charged but not convicted in the period covered by his report."
Government

Submission + - Database of all UK children launched (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "A controversial database which holds the details of every child in England has now become available for childcare professionals to access. The government says it will enable more co-ordinated services for children and ensure none slips through the net. 390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training."
United States

Submission + - SPAM: Do we really need a National Climate Service?

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "I suppose its natural for Washington to try and wrap issues up in a tidy legislative package for bureaucratic purposes (or perhaps other things more nefarious). But one has to wonder if we really need another government-lead group, especially when it comes to the climate and all the sometimes controversial information that entails. But that's what's under way. Today the House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing on the need for a National Climate Service that could meet the increased demand for climate information, the committee said. The NCS would provide a single point of contact of information climate forecasts and support for planning and management decisions by federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; and the private sector. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Security

Submission + - Undocumented Backdoor in PGP Whole Disk Encryption (blogspot.com)

Submitted by A non-mouse Coward
A non-mouse Coward writes: PGP Corporation's widely adopted Whole Disk Encryption product apparently has an encryption bypass feature that allows an encrypted drive to be accessed without the boot-up passphrase challenge dialog, leaving data in a vulnerable state if the drive is stolen when the bypass feature is enabled. The feature is also apparently not in the documentation that ships with the PGP product, nor the publicly available documentation on their website, but only mentioned briefly in the customer knowledge base (PGP customer account required). Jon Callas, CTO and CSO of PGP Corp., responded that this feature was required by unnamed customers and that competing products have similar "dangerous" functionality. There is still no official word from PGP as to why the public documentation withheld recognition of this risky option.

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