The chairman of a cross-party information select committee is launching a parliamentary inquiry into the technical weaknesses of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) Bill.

It has been revealed that the Bill could be successfully evaded using basic network technology that has been available since 1976.

Liberal Democrat MP Richard Allan, who is chairman of the parliamentary select committee, was startled by the revelations and said it had not been clear enough to those fighting the Bill that this technology made RIP practically useless.

He said it only made sense to establish RIP if it could be enforced. "I warned the minister in committee that the Bill would not achieve the government's objectives because alternative technology would provide ways of working round it," said Allan. "We are now seeing the proof of that in the evidence being put forward by the industry of technologies that will render the Bill ineffective."

He added that he intends to send a letter to Home Office minister Charles Clark to point out that there are indeed severe technical problems with the Bill. "I will challenge the Home Office to respond by sending them details of the evidence and asking them to confirm whether or not they believe their legislation will be effective in these circumstances," he said.

The network technology that challenges the effectiveness of the Bill consists of the combined use of the steganographic file system, which hides stored files, and the Diffie-Hellman key exchange that sends encrypted data with vanishing codes over a normal telephone line. Together, they make it virtually impossible to trace or intercept data messages.

To tackle some of these issues, the government would have to include ordinary carrier transmissions in the scope of the Bill and outlaw steganographic systems, which is practically impossible.

First published in Network News