Robin Wilton's esoterica

Easter falls early enough this year as it is, but someone who recently bought a laptop on eBay got an extra Easter-egg in the form of a Home Office data CD, hidden underneath the keyboard. Well, they didn't actually get it, because it was found by some techies who were doing maintenance work on the machine. The techies called the police, who apparently sent anti-terrorist officers round to confiscate the CD and the laptop. The data in the CD and the laptop's disk was encrypted, we're told.

There are all kinds of questions here. Whose was the laptop? Was the person who sold it on eBay the legitimate owner? Was it a 'work' machine or a 'personal' machine? Did the laptop and the CD both originate in a Home Office building, or come together later? Was the seller completely unaware of the CD, or had they cached it and forgotten it was there? And so on...

Naturally, in the current climate, there's been a lot of media coverage of this incident, but I haven't yet seen the answer to what I think is the interesting 'data custody best practice' question: how is it that someone in the Home Office does work which is sensitive enough to merit encryption, both on removable media and on the disk, and yet the whole machine, cached CD and all, ends up on eBay? OK, I'm making some assumptions there... but the alternative explanation is that someone needs to use a Home Office CD of encrypted data, but hides it under the keyboard of their personal laptop - which happens to have an encrypted hard drive. Occam's Razor favours the former, but I doubt we'll ever get the answers...

I'm delighted to be able to pass on the news that Susan Landau has been announced as one of the "Women of Vision" award-winners by the Anita Borg Institute. The Institute looks for women who combine technical expertise with a far-reaching vision, and it doesn't take a very long conversation to realise that Susan has both of those in abundance.

Semi-numerate as I am, I'm entirely the wrong person to try and comment on her work on polynomials, number theory and cryptography... but what I really like is the way Susan combines this with a passionate, informed and lucid analysis of the social and ethical dimensions of security technology. I heard Susan speak a couple of months ago at Royal Holloway (University of London) about the impact of surveillance technology on human rights, and it was - as another colleague once put it - 'one of those presentations which makes me feel proud to work at Sun'.

Congratulations, Susan - a well-deserved recognition. 

Two men arrested but later cleared, and who therefore have no criminal record, are to seek a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) about whether it is lawful for their DNA profiles to be retained on the UK's national database. One of them, referred to only as "S", was charged with attempted robbery when he was 11 years old. He was acquitted. His DNA is still on the database.

Currently, and in the wake of convictions for the Ipswich murders and the killing of Sally Anne Bowman, much of the discussion centres around the utility of such a database for law enforcement purposes. However, the missing analytical data is this: of those people who are identified using their DNA database record, and subsequently convicted, how many were added to the database in the first place for some reason other than being convicted of an offence? In other words, in how many cases does the recording of an innocent person's DNA lead to their subsequent identification and conviction?

It's important to have that analytical data, because the ECHR will want to decide whether it is proportionate to keep a permanent record of the DNA of innocent citizens.

As we heard a few weeks ago, Lord Justice Sedley is of the view that everyone should be in the database, because the current state of affairs is "indefensible" (or in the words of David Davis, "arbitrary and erratic"). It will be interesting to see whether the ECHR reaches the same conclusion, given the same input.

The trouble with setting up an Aunt Sally is that something is liable to get damaged.

In a letter to the Financial Times on Friday, Home Office Minister Meg Hillier expressed her view that anyone who thought the National ID card scheme was intended to stop card-less students from getting student loans should think again, and re-read David Blunkett's 2003 foreword to the paper setting out the scheme.

Of course, no-one has seriously suggested that the most significant risks inherent in the ID Card scheme have anything whatsoever to do with student loans - and arguably, the publication of his massive memoirs more than satisifed the desire of most people to read anything written by David Blunkett.

Ms Hillier goes on to say "Young people need to prove their identity more than most"... an assertion which is bizarre enough to deserve more detailed examination. What is it that young people do more than older people which requires them to prove their identity? If the answer is "air travel" or "applying for a passport" (at £72 a go), then no wonder they're worried at the prospect of not getting a student loan. Perhaps what Ms Hillier means is that young people are more likely than others to need to prove their age... which hints at a more serious problem.

As long as we are unable to separate the idea of 'proof of identity' from 'assertion of a specific attribute', we're doomed to a digital age in which identity-related assertions are indiscriminate, and result in the excessive disclosure of personal information. Ms Hillier may have been a bit rash to raise that notion while the HMRC breach is still so fresh in the public memory.

I have to be honest and admit that I haven't gone back to Mr Blunkett's foreword - but Ms Hillier's suggestion did have a happy side-effect. I found this
BBC News story from November 2006, in which "Mr Blunkett said the idea [of extensive audio surveillance of London's 2012 Olympic venues] echoed the fictional authoritarian Brave New World of Aldous Huxley's novel.

"As you walk down the street you expect to be able to have a private conversation," he said.

"If you can't guarantee that - and here is someone
speaking who has been pretty tough in terms of what should be available
to protect society - I believe we have slipped over the edge."

He said he hoped the government would not authorise it.

"There is an enormous difference between surveilling
people in terms of CCTV - where what you see is what anyone can see
walking down the road - and actually recording someone's private
conversations," he said."

I think it's great that a  former Home Secretary thinks that our conversations in the street should be private. I haven't been able to find out what he thinks about bugging MPs when they talk to their constituents. The closing irony is that Babar Ahmed is only in prison right now because Mr Blunkett signed the UK up to the unilateral 'peremptory extradition' arrangement with the States.

"We had no idea what they were doing down their end of the island. Honest, guv."

On Microsoft's announcement that it is making 30,000 pages of technical documentation available in the name of openness, "Steve Ballmer, chief executive, denied that the changes had been made to appease regulators".

Hmm. Well, if it wasn't anti-trust regulatory pressure, that would seem to leave two candidate motivations:

i) irresistible commercial pressure;

ii) altruism.

Votes?

Yesterday in parliament, Home Secretary David Miliband, admitted that - despite years of categorical denials - American "extraordinary rendition" flights passed through UK territory. Earth-shaking as this admission might seem, on closer inspection it seems to have been carefully crafted for maximum damage limitation. It's all too easy to imagine the spin-doctors brainstorming this one round the table:

"OK - we need something to drag the headlines away from Northern Wreck, MPs being bugged by the police, ministers lining up their private-sector jobs while in office, public sector data breaches, prisons full beyond their capacity, England as a global disease hotspot...  Anyway, you get the picture. Ideas? And let's think outside the box here, guys."

"What about admitting to extraordinary rendition flights?"

"Hmm. I like it, but it's a bit inflammatory. Can't we tone it down a bit?"

"How about this, then: they did happen, but we weren't lying when we denied it, we were just misinformed... by the Americans."

"Like it, like it... get the anti-US sentiment in there... Bush won't mind, he's demob happy already."

"OK, plus we'll say that it happened on UK territory, but somewhere a really long way away, like Diego Garcia. And not actually through an RAF airbase, just an American one."

"Good, good... Diego Garcia's days are numbered too - four feet's worth of global warming and the whole place is history."

"Plus, we've got a new PM now, a new Foreign Secretary, and a new Minister for Europe... so basically it wasn't on our watch, it wasn't on our mainland, and it wasn't on our runway."

"Smoother than a greased weasel."

it's who you know. 

Or so the saying used to run, at least. It's a saying which, to me, seems ripe for re-casting. These days, it's not who you are, it's what's done with that information.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, UK law enforcement authorities have the power to take DNA samples from suspects, witnesses, and those questioned in connection with a criminal investigation, whether or not the person in question is subsequently charged with anything, let alone convicted. As a result, the UK has the largest DNA database on the planet.

The irony cannot have escaped David Cameron today, as he used Prime Minister's Questions to lay into Gordon Brown over the revelation that a CD of DNA samples, sent to the Crown Prosecution Service by Dutch police, apparently languished in someone's in-tray for a year before anyone acted on it. The DNA samples related to some 4,000 serious crimes committed abroad, and the Dutch wanted their UK counterparts to check for matches in the UK database... but the process seems to have fallen apart. It now appears that so far 15 matches have emerged, and 11 of those identified have committed further offences in the UK.

I have recently noted proposals or calls for:

- A national database of 'problem gamblers';

- A national, lifelong database of all pupils' school records;

- A database of young people potentially at risk of suicide;

and so on.

The frequency of calls like these seems to me to represent a strangely optimistic hope that the act of accumulating a database of information is, in itself, enough to fix whatever problem is associated with the community in question. Haven't we had ample evidence recently that in fact, it's often not necessary and never sufficient?

For instance, why does the proposal for lifelong records of academic achievement record each pupil's post code? It can't be to provide an index, because there's to be a separate, lifelong 'learner number' for that - though the Learning and Skills Council deny that this amounts to an 'ID Card by the back door'. And isn't a 'post code' rather ephemeral thing to be storing in this context? I'm a very long way from the post code I had last time I took an exam.

And it makes little difference how much data you have concerning a given problem, if the information never makes it past the in-box.

The picture one tends to get is of information present in huge quantities, but not subject to effective information management disciplines, or effective information life-cycle processes. In the absence of those two things, surely the mass accumulation of personal data amounts to one thing above all: risk.

Support crews for the Devizes to Westminster race (4-day event) can download a .pdf file of driving directions here.

[Important Update, 19/3/2008: I have amended the route directions to reflect advice just received from the race organisers concerning access to Bray Lock. Please ensure you are using a copy of the directions which reflects this advice. Otherwise you could be putting your crew at risk of disqualification.

Access to Bray Lock is strictly on foot only. There is no vehicle access. The last point at which you may be able to find limited parking is in Old Marsh Lane. Under no circumstances should you turn into, or park in, the private lane which runs from Old Marsh Lane to the lock itself.

Under no circumstances should you obstruct Old Marsh Lane, or access to the houses, campsite or the lock itself. If you do so and your vehicle details are reported to the race organisers, you may find your crew is disqualified.

You may conclude that it is less hassle to simply omit Bray Lock and support at Boulter's Weir and Dorney boathouses instead.] 

NB - please do not rely on the same directions if you are supporting a "straight-through" crew, as the support routes differ at Newbury, Marlow and Teddington. [When I have a URL for the most current directions, I will post it here.]

Masood and others have been good enough to post their thoughtful contributions in the comments to my posts about Dr Williams' recent speech. In response to Masood's comment on yesterday's post, I wrote something which I subsequently thought I would fish out of the 'comment pool' and post here, because it relates to the themes of personal and social identity raised in the Archbishop's speech. So here you go.

"Masood, many thanks for your comment. You're right; there's a lot in
the speech which I didn't comment on and which is worthy of much
discussion. In particular, I noted his remarks about personal identity
(so, no surprise there, then...) and its relationship to ethics.

He draws attention to a principle very well covered by Amartya Sen
in his book "Identity and Violence", which is that our participation in
the modern world cannot be reduced to a single 'identity' or
affiliation. Each sphere in which we participate represents an
'identity' which the individual may legitimately claim (thus, the fact
that someone is, say, female, of Ghanaian ethnicity and a parent does
not preclude her claiming an identity as 'a feminist', 'a Chelsea
supporter', 'a jazz lover' and so on).

Sen, like the Archbishop, argues
that there is a great danger in either pigeon-holing an individual into
a specific identity, or assuming that all of that individual's
behaviour is necessarily and always driven by the strictures of a
single such identity. To what extent does an individual only actually
have an identity/identities by virtue of interacting with others? There
are tantalising references to structuralist concepts such as 'identity
as narrative' which are probably worth a thesis in themselves.

There are also hints of further fascinating concepts in the way in
which the Archbishop describes the relationship between social identity
and personal morality. For instance, how much does the thoughtful
person derive ethical principles from 'inner' spiritual contemplation
and how much from 'external' social interaction...?

An article today says the Archbishop was at fault for not dumbing
down his public speeches or paying enough attention to the inevitable
soundbite... as if human thought in every domain must be liquidised
until it will pass smoothly through the sieve of the main-stream media.
Yeuch."

Just a quick post to recommend the Privacy, Identity and Consent blog over at ComputerWeekly. The blog is run by Toby Stevens, who is very well-informed on privacy issues and has an admirably level head on him. Well worth a browse.

My thanks to Masood Mortazavi for tracking down the links to the full text of Dr Rowan Williams' controversial speech about the relationship between law, society and religious conviction. Even a quick skim of the document sketches out two substantial gulfs: one between the speech and Dr Williams' radio interview, and the other between both of those and the media and public comment on the topic... including my previous blog post.

I'm going to have to explain that blog title, I reckon, as the word 'bish', other than as an abbreviation for 'bishop', is not going to be common usage for a lot of people. When I was a school-kid, a 'bish' was one slang word for a mistake, an error, a foul-up.

Debate is raging on, today, about whether Dr Rowan Williams' comments about faith-based legal systems were a huge bish, a well-intentioned but misguided intervention, or the well thought out, pragmatic position of a highly intelligent thinker, which is simply exciting a lot of knee-jerk ranting from sensationalist journalists and publicity-hungry minority interests.

Here's a link to a transcript, not of the formal speech itself, which I haven't found online yet, but to an interview the Arch-bish...op (let's grant him the benefit of the doubt for the time being) gave to Radio 4 beforehand.

To my mind, when you strip away all the Sharia references which have proved so inflammatory, the bones of the argument you're left with appear to be these:

- there's a problem with social cohesion in Britain today, a lot of which can be ascribed to widely-differing cultural conventions;

- those conventions create a particular conflict where, for instance, religious or ethical principles appear to be at odds with the legal system, or appear not to be reflected in the legal system at all. He refers to this as "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty";

- the social cohesion problem could therefore, at least in part, be addressed by making it possible for the general legal system to encompass a range of culturally-sensitive options.

When it's boiled down to those terms, the position appears relatively non-divisive, as one would expect from Dr Williams. However, it does raise two immediate issues: first, is it a good idea to change the legal system in the specific ways he suggests, and second, if those changes were implemented, would they be likely to produce the beneficial effect claimed on the problem of social cohesion.

To take the second issue first... I think that's a decidedly dodgy claim. Is it really the case that the major grievance supposedly alienated communities have with British society is that of incompatibility between their religiously-derived ethical principles and the country's established legal system? Or are there other factors, such as social or economic exclusion, or a conviction that they have a poorly-heard democratic voice, which are more present and more pressing on a daily basis? Nor did I see any examination of the plausible counter-claim - that establishing independent legal systems within the nation-state might actually hinder social cohesion by reducing integration/assimilation.

It's the first question, though, which exercises me more the more I think about it. In favour of a more diverse legal system, the example is cited of the Beth Din: English law already allows for disputing parties to agree to binding arbitration by a third party in civil cases, and some civil disputes in the Orthodox Jewish community have for some time been resolved purely through this process. However, I noted that some commenters referred to the disputing parties "contracting" to use such a tribunal. There's also a well-established legal principle in the UK that a contract is not legally enforceable if it infringes the statutory rights of one or other or the parties. (To give an exaggerated example - I cannot legally contract with you to take my life, because I have a statutory entitlement not to be killed....).

So here's a first point of tension between what Dr Williams advocates and the way the legal system operates currently. What would be the status of arbitration through a mutually-agreed tribunal, if that arbitration process violated the statutory rights of one or other of the parties in dispute. Note the implication, in the law as it stands, that both parties mutually and freely consent to arbitration by the third party. It is ironic, of course, that the Archbishop is proposing this in the hope of strengthening social cohesion, when a clearly foreseeable risk is that one or other party will be under great (and sometimes mortal) pressure to agree to 'religious' arbitration rather than take the dispute 'outside the community'.

A second point of tension is illustrated by another example of 'sub-judicial' dispute resolution, if I can use that shorthand: an unofficial Somali court ('gar') in London apparently convened and ruled on a case of stabbing. The court gathered the suspects (who had been released on police bail), witnesses and families, the accused admitted their guilt, and compensation was agreed. Now, on the one hand, when that works, it sounds fine. If something were to go wrong, however, it would be hard to distinguish between this and a vigilante 'kangaroo court'. As with the previous concern, the risk of inappropriate 'social
pressure' being brought to bear on the parties involved cannot be
ignored.

And there's nothing in Dr Williams' remarks (that I have seen) which suggests how a sub-judicial court gets, as it were, accredited. The idea of, say, a National Front tribunal ruling on misdemeanours in its community is quite repugnant.

The English legal system very carefully separates the activities of the police, the lawyers, the judges, the law-makers and so on. It also carefully defines the conditions which distinguish a serving jury member from any other citizen, and it does so for reasons which have made social sense for a long time. That's not to say that they should not be re-examined as social conditions change - in fact, what we have now has been the result of change. Otherwise we'd still have hue-and-cry, trial by ordeal, witch-dunking and the pillory. But that might make it all the more important that we think very hard before making fundamental changes to a system which has grown, intertwined, with the society in which it operates.

There's no shortage of groups who have seized on Dr Williams' remarks as inflammatory, offensive or otherwise wrong-headed, but I haven't seen a flame yet on behalf of the devout secularist. So, on behalf of that under-represented community, here goes... the remark which I found most personally offensive came at the end of the interview:

"What we don't want [is] a stand-off where the law [...] squares up to religious consciences over something like abortion or indeed by forcing a vote on some aspects of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in the Commons - as it were a secular discourse saying 'we have no room for conscientious objections'"

If the Archbishop's starting point really is that there is no such thing as a secular conscientious objection, then perhaps I was wrong... maybe this isn't a well-thought-out pragmatic intellectual position, just special pleading on the part of someone who claims the moral high ground by excluding anyone whose ethics are not based on religious faith.

 Here are a couple of pics from last Saturday's training session; a tough 12 miles including the 400-yard, unlit Bruce Tunnel. Here's what it looks like, staring into the mouth of a 400-yard unlit brick tube:

and the notorious Crofton Flight - a 3/4 miles series of locks where hopping in and out of the canal just doesn't make sense. The only answer is to pick up that kayak and run. And run. And at the end of it, there was still another 6 1/2 miles to paddle...

In the background you can see Owen Peake, who has been helping the crews with some technical coaching.

A true DW veteran, Owen completed the 125 miles in 1998 in 16h 34m 53s, and even that was only enough to get third place; 1998's top three finishers still stand as the fastest official times for the junior pairs class.. However, there's also Owen's unofficial time from the 2000 race (which was called off before the finish, because of potentially hazardous river conditions). Taking responsibility for their own competence and safety, Owen and his partner reached Westminster in an astounding 14h 35m 56s - an average pace ofover 8 1/2 miles an hour.

I've just been reading Thomas Smedinghoff's article in Network World, about the importance of having the right legal underpinnings for large-scale federated identity deployments.

On the one hand, I was glad to see a clear analysis of the elements of trusted identity and federation (for instance, the importance of a robust identity lifecycle from registration/verification/enrolment, through the issue of credentials, and on to authentication, authorisation and access control). On the other hand, it was disappointing that the "headline-ese" title of the article - "Legal Obstacles Delay Federated Identity" gives a very misleading impression.

One might expect, from the title, that the subsequent article would be full of examples of federation deployments which have started out OK, then run into legal obstacles and ground to a halt... but that's not what we find. A more accurate title for the article might have been: "Legal Obstacles Can Delay Federation Deployment If Not Properly Considered"... not so snappy, I admit, which is one reason why I'd make a lousy newspaper editor.

However, what was disappointing was that the article cited the Liberty Alliance's work on specifications for federated identity without also mentioning the fact that the Alliance has, from its inception, focussed on the legal and contractual aspects of federation as well as the technical specifications. OK - nostra culpa, perhaps, for not publicising it sufficiently, but here are some examples of documented work in this area:

- there's the 2003 paper on Privacy and Security Guidelines, which explicitly addresses the need to look at differing legal and regulatory requirements when establishing a federated system;

- 2005 paper on the Business and Policy Guidelines for establishing Circles of Trust;

- the paper on large-scale cross-border inter-federation (that is, the linking together of existing federated systems);

- copious work in 2007 on Identity Assurance, Identity Governance, and a set of contractual frameworks for different federation structures.

For all the theoretical work and the existing, documented implementation case-studies, this is, I admit, still a complex area. So even if I accept Mr  Smedinghoff's description of it as a 'minefield', I'd assert that it's a minefield which Liberty's work has done a lot to map out, and through which it has already established some cleared and taped-out paths.

When you put two of today's food-related news items side by side, it seems to indicate that something is definitely wrong with the economics of food production in the UK. It's somewhere on the spectrum of stewed/skewed/skewered/screwed, though I haven't yet worked out where.

The biggest supermarket chain (Tesco) has attracted critisism for cutting the price of its standard intensively-farmed chicken to £1.99 apiece (from £3.30). I'm guessing that probably works out at roughly £1/kilo.

Meanwhile, over in Thailand, fresh, non-urban rat will go for up to £2.30/kilo. One rat-seller says he regularly shifts 100 kilos in a single day, and customers say it's "better than chicken". At more than twice the price - even before one takes into account the net effect of the cost-of-living differential between the UK and Thailand - I should hope so!

Well, here we go again... again. This year's 125-mile Devizes to Westminster canoe marathon - the 60th anniversary of its inception - is now less than 7 weeks away, and for the third year in succession there will be Wilton participation.

This year it's my son who will be taking part. Sibling rivalry? Perish the thought.

As before, the school is encouraging its crews to raise sponsorship money for donation to a charity: this year it is Msaada, a Dorset-based charity which is helping surivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocides to rebuild their lives. All the sponsorship money raised goes to the charity; the costs associated with entering the race, training, boats and equipment are met by the school, and the rest (glucose, painkillers, blister treatment) by the parents.

Training for the race is in full swing, the programme being made even more challenging by the fact that Easter falls exceptionally early this year. Most of the school's crews have never paddled a canoe before (let alone a skinny, steerable, two-person racing kayak). This is week 5 of their training programme, and over the course of three sessions, they will cover a total of 32 miles. So as you can see, the physical pace of the training is a beast in itself, before they even get to racing... especially on a wintry day like this:

In both of the last two years blog-readers have been incredibly supportive, and once again this year, any and all sponsorship offers are gratefully welcomed: just drop an email pledge, for any amount, to robin dot wilton at sun dot com. We'll arrange payment later through PayPal or other acceptable means. Thank you!

There's an interesting story this weekend over allegations that a Labour MP, Sadiq Khan, was bugged by the security services while visiting a prison inmate in the course of his constituency work (in 2005-2006). An added dimension is that the inmate in question - Babar Ahmad - has been in prison for some 3 1/2 years now, without having been charged with any offence in the UK, pending an extradition request by the US authorities.

One aspect which fascinates me is that all the resulting discussion seems to centre around whether the UK should continue the convention (established under Harold Wilson in 1966) that MPs are exempt from being bugged by the police. There's no corresponding discussion of what the police are doing bugging the conversations of someone who's in prison but hasn't been charged with anything.

Then there's the broader issue of the controversially one-sided arrangement, signed by David Blunkett (then Home Secretary) in 2003, under which the US can request extradition without having to provide prima facie evidence to support the request. This is the basis on which Mr Ahmad is currently being held. Here's how the statewatch.org website characterises that agreement:

"- (1) it removes the requirement on the US to provide
prima facie evidence when requesting the extradition of people
from the UK but maintains the requirement on the UK to
satisfy the "probable cause" requirement in the US
when seeking the extradition of US nationals;
- (2) it removes or restricts key protections currently open
to suspects and defendants;
- (3) it implements the EU-US Treaty on extradition, signed
in Washington on 25 June 2003, but far exceeds the provisions
in this agreement."

Statewatch also noted that

"No other EU countries would accept this US demand, either
politically or constitutionally. Yet the UK government not only
acquiesced, but did so taking advantage of arcane legislative
powers to see the treaty signed and implemented without any parliamentary
debate or scrutiny." 

Here's spyblog's analysis of the episode. Their site also has an archive of posts which relate to the so-called "Wilson Doctrine" exempting UK MPs from eavesdropping. As the archive makes clear, the Doctrine does not apply to members of devolved national assemblies - as perhaps exemplified by the bugging of Gerry Adams' offices in the Stormont parliament building... I remembered the story, but forgot that at the time, recently-departed minister Peter Hain refused a public enquiry on the grounds that it would be expensive and 'not in the public interest'.

In many respects, then, the Khan bugging episode raises complex issues:

- what confidentiality should apply to face-to-face conversations between an MP and his constituent?

- under what circumstances should that confidentiality be suspended?

- should Westminster MPs be exempt from bugging?

- should they enjoy such an exemption when MPs in the devolved assemblies do not?

- does the continued acceptance of the Wilson Doctrine imply that the government cannot design an 'accountable' bugging regime for MPs?

- does the UK-US extradition treaty stand up to ethical, constitutional or practical scrutiny?

- what are the implications of the Khan/Ahmed bugging for the government's proposals on pre-charge questioning of terror suspects?

Both the ministers I've cited (David Blunkett and Peter Hain) happen to have left their ministerial posts under circumstances of some ethical controversy (Blunkett repeatedly).

Footnote: there's an added twist to the story now, in that David Davis (Shadow Home Secretary) says he wrote to the Prime Minister's office six weeks ago to alert him to reports that the Wilson Doctrine had been breached. Number 10, however, denies having received such a letter, and "[g]overnment sources called it incredible that Mr Davis appeared not to have telephoned in advance of posting such a letter, or sent a copy by fax or e-mail". Presumably, like the HMRC, Mr Davis thought it was sufficient to have put it in the post...

"Trust" is not a technological concept. Neither is "privacy". But in the online world, and in many instances in the 'real' world, both are frequently technology-mediated. For instance, you may use the physical technology of locks to safeguard your privacy in the home; you may use the technology of certified public keys to assess whether or not you trust a given website.

Conversely, of course, encryption does not equal privacy, and digital signing does not equal trust. These may sound like platitudes, trivially true, but they are at the heart of some of the most interesting aspects of current discussions of privacy and trust. At one end of the scale you have "high-order" abstract concepts like privacy and trust, and at the other end, you have technical mechanisms such as encryption and digital signing.

A constant question for technologists is "how far is it legitimate for technical specialists to comment on the high-order concepts, as opposed to the purely technical aspects?". Moreover, how far can they legitimately extend their comments into 'policy' areas such as the legal and regulatory context in which technology is deployed? Einstein, von Braun and Oppenheimer all had their views on this question; then again, so did the pioneers of some aspects of social medicine, such as Alexander Fleming (bacteriology) and John Snow (epidemiology). These days, topics like DNA sequencing, IVF and stem cell research push at many of the same boundaries.

All of which is a rather long-winded way of introducing this paper in the IEEE's journal of Security and Privacy. The list of authors is an impressive one (and I apologise for summarising each of them in a highly selective phrase, when their names alone are probably quite sufficient...):

- Steve Bellovin, Columbia University, network security expert

- Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania, cryptographer

- Whitfield Diffie, Sun Microsystems, pioneer of asymmetric encryption

- Susan Landau, Sun Microsystems, network security and public policy specialist

- Peter Neumann, SRI International, specialist in computer-related risk

- Jennifer Rexford, Princeton University, network infrastructure expert.

The paper is an examination of some of the potential  risks inherent in the establishment of a national system for communications interception, written with the cumulative experience of this group of experienced technologists. As such, it offers a case study of how those of an informed technical background can offer relevant and incisive comment on the public policy aspects of high-order concepts such as trust, privacy and security. I highly recommend it...