HKU Bulletin November 2005 (Vol. 7 No. 1)

13 Computer Crime and Prevention C omputers have become a plentiful source of urban horror stories, of bank accounts illegally accessed, identities stolen and pornographers given a new lease of life through the anonymity of downloads. The prospect of preventing and solving these complex crimes compounds the nightmare. Now, our researchers have stepped into the breach to offer some solutions to Hong Kong computer users. Two programs have been developed, one in conjunction with the Hongkong Post, the other with the police, to protect users and detect crime. The e-Cert Fi leGuard supports use of the Smart ID Card, which every resident age 11 and over must carry. The program enables cardholders to send and receive documents over the Internet confidentially, maintains the data integrity of these documents, shows the documents are from trusted and recognised senders, and ensures senders cannot deny what they have sent. It is expected to enhance e-commerce activities in the business sector and among individuals over the Internet. “A [hand-written] signature is not 100 per cent proof because it can be forged, but the e-Cert FileGuard cannot be forged,” Dr Paul Cheung, Managing Director of Versitech Ltd, the wholly- owned University technology transfer company which launched the program, said. “I think it will take time for this to catch on, but most people don’t realise that through e-mail and so forth, they are actually open to security fraud.” At the other end of the problem is the need to catch fraudsters. The Centre for Information Security and Cryptography, which developed the technology used in e-Cert FileGuard, has also devised a digital detective to aid police work. The Digital Evidence Search Kit (DESK) was first developed a few years ago, but it has been updated to make it multi-lingual – it can now read Chinese-coded files – and improve its effectiveness in police work and in courts. Investigators can use the new DESK to retrieve deleted documents, such as files of illegal transactions, by looking for clues and copying files. Police work from the copies and the original information is locked to prevent tampering, a requirement for evidence submitted in court. “The police were involved in the development of the program. They gave us their requirements, the main functions they needed, and their user interface specifications,” Associate Professor Dr Chow Kam Pui of the Department of Computer Science said. The program also has applicability in the classroom where it will be used as a teaching tool for students pursuing an MSc in E- commerce and Internet Computing degree. Dr Cheung added that projects like DESK and the e-Cert FileGuard were examples of how the University’s academics applied their research to develop products of benefit to society. RESEARCH Advocate for Basic Law S imon Young is an unlikely campaigner for the full release of Basic Law documents, an issue of recent heated debate. Soft- spoken and unassuming, he has spent most of his life in Canada. Yet those qualities may give him an advantage in his task. While various camps have argued over whether Basic Law drafters should ‘record’ their intent ions for the record, he has quietly been gathering the documented information already avai lable. He has also been meeting with individual drafters to see if they can help him source more material. S ome d o c ume n t s , i n particular the minutes, reports and other papers from sub- groups of the Basic Law Drafting Commi t tee, have been kept under wraps by Bei j ing. Mr Young, an Associate Professor in the Department of law, believes this is no longer justified. “At the time [of the drafting], secrecy was a very big issue. It was considered important to have confidentiality so as not to interrupt the flow of discussion. I can understand why they did that, but it’s been over 15 years since the initial drafting. I don’t see the just i f icat ion now for secrecy,” he said. Mr Young has hooked up with Alan Hoo, founder of the Basic Law Institute, in his quest to assemble a complete drafting history of the Basic Law and put it on the Internet. Mr Hoo worked with the Hong Kong government to open a public library late last year based around his acquired collection of papers. Mr Young and his researchers have scoured this resource and other libraries to see what is available, and are now uploading 20,000 pages of documents onto a website that will launch early next year. The University’s Strategic Research Areas fund provided a seed grant of $333,124 for the project, which Mr Young co- convenes with Professor Yash Ghai, Professor: Sir Y.K. Pao Chair of Public Law. Collaborating with 10 other academics from the University and Tsinghua University law school, the project will also result in a Basic Law bibliography and casebook for students. Mr Young said the missing sub-group papers were essential to clarify misunderstandings over such issues as the term of the Chief Executive. In the debate earlier this year over the term of Tung Chee-hwa’s successor, the Secretary for Justice Elsie Leung changed her posi t ion based on classi f ied draft ing history documents. “If these documents are so powerful that they caused her to change her opinion, they must be important,” he said. “It’s hardly the case that these documents are state secrets. The definition of ‘state secret’ is fluid, but I don’t think you can argue it in this case.” Apart from lobbying drafters and trying to gain Beijing’s ear, Mr Young hopes the momentum of the website will encourage the release of more documents. “Once we get the digital resource up and running, people will see that for certain meetings and dates, there is an absence of documents. And it will show how much material is already publicly available, because some documents make reference to discussions in sub-groups. Hopefully that will serve as a catalyst to bring attention to this issue,” he said. 12