>banned from offering unbreakable encryption under new laws
>3:16PM GMT 02 Nov 2015
>Internet and social media companies will be banned from putting
>customer communications beyond their own reach under new laws to be
>unveiled on Wednesday.
>Companies such as Apple, Google and others will no longer be able to
>offer encryption so advanced that even they cannot decipher it when
>asked to, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
>Measures in the Investigatory Powers Bill will place in law a
>requirement on tech firms and service providers to be able to provide
>unencrypted communications to the police or spy agencies if requested
>through a warrant.

The UK government is able to do this, in part because UK doesn't have a Constitution,

merely a Parliament.   Needless to say, the writers of the Magna Carta didn't

have much familiarity with Internet, or even telephone, television, or telegraph.

It occurs to me there may be at least two workarounds for this:

1.  If there are no restrictions on this, the company providing the encryption might

  make its decryption of messages take, say, 10 or more days per message, total 

 (so if GCHQ asks for 1 message each from 10 sources,, the thing will take 100 days.)

Thus, it is technically able to decrypt, satisfying the law, just not fast enough to make

the government happy.

2.  Add hooks to provide for a second layer of encryption, enabled by the choice of the user.

The company will be able to decrypt, but the result will appear random.

                Jim Bell