Nomen Nescio wrote:
The fact is, crypto as we know it is a luxury. It didn't even exist ten years ago. None of the crypto tools we use did. We can hardly make a case that banning or restricting access to them will send us back into the stone age.
Please, let's end these spurious arguments that providers of crypto tools are no different than the people who make the metal in the airplane wings. There's a big difference, which anyone with an ounce of sense can see. Banning airplanes is not an option. Banning crypto is. I disagree. Ten years ago neither the Web nor e-commerce existed, either, and ordinary people had barely heard of email or cell phones. Their privacy was protected by the labor and traceability of intercepting paper mail and tapping analog phones. Without encryption, every national government will have technology to effortlessly spy on all their citizens all the time. Inevitably, some will use it. Saying cryptography is a luxury because it is new is like saying seat belts are a luxury because horse-drawn carriages didn't have them. Howie Goodell -- Howie Goodell hgoodell@cs.uml.edu Pr SW Eng, WearLogic Sc.D. Cand HCI Res Grp CS Dept U Massachussets Lowell http://people.ne.mediaone.net/goodell/howie Dying is soooo 20th-century! http://www.cryonics.org