What do people think about crypto being considered Free Speech? This might be the most powerful angle. Freedom of expression would be a great way to protest a ban on hard crypto; detecting the use of crypto on the Internet would be like Prodigy monitoring all news groups for non-family (and non-Prodigy) material. Not only that, but if the proported crypto material wasn't actually crypto but random bits, then no laws would be broken. The next step for the tyrant in this arms race is to send messages that merely appear to contain crypto illegal. By analogy, the FCC can fine people for joking about the metal detector and xray equipment security check points. I don't know if this is a law, but the FCC could enforce its fine by not allowing you to fly again on a commercial airline. (Monopolies, they work just great. ;^) A further step in this scenario is for the pro-free-speech people to start using various data compression techniques--a proliferation of non-standards for various reasons (well, C++ compression could be specialized--no dictionary need be sent if the reciever knows it is C++; same for English used on particular news groups, poetry, etc.). This would cause massive false positives of packets that appear to be encrypted. Obviously, fairly enforcing a law against such usage would be impossible. I can see two outcomes at this stage: (1) the laws are eliminated, or (2) they are enforced only selectively. Considering the way things usually work, (2) seems more likely, however the fact that the merger of phones and computers is already happening (e.g., Sun ss10 with ISDN has a complete phone answering system written by Jeff Peck at Sun), the volume of resistance can easily be *large* and *convenient*. Few protests are convenient; with this, people don't even have to leave work! (The downside is, however, that it would be difficult to get media attention for doing it...TV camera pointed at the workstation, OK, I'm pressing the Send button now. Hah! Take that!) If the powers-that-be then come up with a law that crypto is illegal only if used for illegal activity, I wouldn't complain so much. Changing your name is legal as long as you don't commit fraud, so there are tolerable examples of this type of law now. Paul E. Baclace peb@procase.com