Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Dan Gillmor's

Author:Jeremy Bowers
Posted:9/26/1999; 7:19:46 PM
Topic:Dan Gillmor's
Msg #:11474 (In response to 11470)
Prev/Next:11473 / 11475

That sounds an awful lot like the "if you criminilize guns, only criminals will have guns" argument that a lot of people reject...

(For the record, I don't reject it.)

Here's a thought: Is there any way to inspect a encrypted transaction and determine the strength of the transaction without attempting to actually break it? (Intuition suggest no, but I can't prove it, which is a big thing in encryption "qbullet.smiley".)

Anyhow, if the answer is no, as I suspect, then they can't catch the people breaking the "encryption strength law" anyhow until they're under suspicion for something else. I haven't got a conclusion for this observation, but surely this means something.

Anyhow, it will be very difficult to enforce this, so I imagine that we'll be seeing some sort of concerted campaign to convince people that Only Criminals Need Encryption. Will there be a concerted effort to counteract that?

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