“The British Government is currently consulting Business on
legislation to regulate the use of strong cryptography in the
UK.”
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 16:57:45 +0000
From: Stefan Magdalinski <stefan@isness.org>
Subject: New UK law threatens to cripple Net commerce
PRIVACY AND NET COMMERCE AT RISK
http://www.stand.org.uk/
Like all your incoming e-mail, this message could have
been read by anyone. It has passed through many
computers on its way to you. Each of those machines is
vulnerable to malicious monitoring. Your outgoing mail
is the same. So is your Web browsing. Given enough
effort, all of your Net communications, personal or
commercial, are insecure.
This is a problem for the Net - but there is a fix. The
fix is strong cryptography. It's a simple, mathematical
process which can protect data on the Net from prying
eyes and mischief. It's easy to set up, straightforward
to use, and all the relevant technology is in the
public domain.
The British Government is currently consulting Business
on legislation to regulate the use of strong cryptography
in the UK. We believe it is of vital importance that the
wider net community make their voices heard also.
We know that the Government believes that not
enough people understand the importance of this
technology to make a fuss. We also know that very few
MPs realise the universal impact of the Net on their
constituents' future, and hence the scale of the issues
involved.
You can change help change that.
HELP REPAIR THE E-COMMERCE BILL - visit
http://www.stand.org.uk/
We need to educate our MPs, and fast. The Government is
determined to pass the E-Commerce bill in this
Parliament. Stand.org.uk invites visitors to enter
their postcode, and "adopt" their local MP. In addition
for an attractive personalised adoption certificate,
they can monitor their MP's activities and
parliamentary performance. Even better, this one-step
adoption process lets users signal their MPs that it is
unacceptable for the Goverment to endanger our
infrastructure in return for the unproven benefits of
being able to 'wiretap' the population.
Thanks for your help,
The Volunteers at Stand, http://www.stand.org.uk/