Reuters (as picked up in today's FINANCIAL TIMES) reports that German economics minister Gunter Rexrodt called for loosening the restrictions on strong encryption. Speaking yesterday at a European ministerial conference on global integration, he said "Users can only protect themselves against having data manipulated, destroyed, or spied on through the use of strong encryption procedures." Hmmm: seems like there's a trend among Certain Global Opinion Makers that some people -- maybe the financial markets? -- need good crypto: compare last week's ECONOMIST and FINANCIAL TIMES editorials. Anyone know how the new German legislation deals with encryption? cheers ......................................... Donald Weightman dweightman@radix.net