🚀 go-pugleaf

prz@sage.cgd.ucar.edu (Philip Zimmermann) writes:
[ Assorted examples of extremist viewpoints deleted ]
> If we are to prevent the electorate from backing legislation that
> will make cryptography a crime, we must have articulate agruments
> that will reach normal people with normal values.  Some of what I've
> seen lately does not meet that requirement.

Well, I tend to argue the case for legal cryptography by using two arguments
which I think anyone can understand and sympathise with.

The first is:  Does the person arguing for a ban on cryptography trust the
government completely?  Is he happy to let the government eavesdrop on *his*
communications whenever *they* (not the populace) decide there's a good
reason?

If the answer is "Yes, I trust the government", then I give up.  You can't
argue with positions like that.

The second argument is:  Does the person arguing for a ban on cryptography
have any idea how this ban might be enforced?  Given that it is possible to
disguise encrypted data as plain text, how will the ban be enforced? 
House-to-house searches?  Polygraph tests?   Informants?  House Cryptographic
Activities hearings?


mathew
-- 
"Even the most bizarre of the unions (probably that between a cat's gall
 stone and a single note 'G' from CNN's ident theme) managed to convey a
 sense of rampant impropriety."  -- 'Fortran Five', Simon G. Lawrence Leonard