Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption (News.com)

Minnesota court takes dim view of encryption (News.com)

Everyone is well aware that encryption (like my exemplary hammer) has an abundance of legal uses.

Sadly, I don't think that's the case. Sure, you and I know that encrypting something is not inherently hiding criminal activity, but various US law enforcement and regulatory angencies have been implying otherwise for the last 10 or 15 years in their repeated attempts to limit the cryptographical tools available to "normal people", and requests for required key escrow, and innumerable press releases about how encrypted cellphones are used by druglords (pre 11/9/2001) and terrorists (since then).[1] Remember the flurry of stories a few years back about how terrorists were hiding their communications via steganography, despite the fact that no one had every actually found a single instance?

The difference is that pretty much everyone has used a hammer for a legal purpose, so the occasional "Thug Breaks Jewelery Store Window with Hammer" headline doesn't produce a "Oh my god, we must outlaw hammers" reaction. Handguns are legal too, but because the only news most people hear about guns tends to involve their use in illegal activities, we have a fairly strong anti-gun movement in this country. To a large part of the US populace, encryption is viewed in much the same way. Besides, it's associated with computers and the Internet, which everyone knows is used mostly for trading music, movies, and child pornography.

Steve

[1] Of course, people miss the obvious answer, which is to ban cellphones.