I think there is a middle ground that you may have missed. Let's see... The cypherpunk view seems to be that eveyone *should* use forms of encryption for passing packets along on the internet. It works best when the majority of people are using, but no one is forced to encrypt their email. People still send postcards, right? No matter what percentage of users on the net use encryption, there will always be those who will exercise their right to send open, plain text messages. It is our right to choose *to* encrypt that we are fighting for, not a general mandate that all use crypt. As for the law's take on this matter, under the constitution, they have no right to tell us that we cannot use encryption in sending our messages. They also have no right to tell us that we cannot teach others how to use it, develop easier ways to implement it so that eventually it will be a no-brainer to use, say that we are criminals because we opt for our right to privacy, or ask us to give up that right to privacy because we are using a new medium. One issue that may come up is that the law cannot make us give our passwords so that they may use our keys to open our documents because it would be self-incrimination, however, they can serve warrants to search our software and documents. In their search, they will be able to try and break our passwords to gain access to the files. If they cannot, it is their tough luck. I don't think that I am stating a position of cypher-anarchy, but advocating a position of personal privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. I don't think that wide-spread use of cyptography would cause anarchy. Would foreign govt. be able to slpi stuff by our govt. because they can use encryption? Sure, like they aren't already doing that right now. The US govt. seems to be saying "Hey, no fair! I can't see your stuff anymore. You can't do that!" when all along, no one has been able to see their packets because they are encrypting it. There are still ways for them to gain access too. Don't tell me they can't set up peeping toms to record keystrokes. Certainly they can do this on ppl's machines. It would be more difficult, but that is the whole point. It should be sufficiently difficult for them to tap so that to tap freely would be infeasable for them to do, just like steaming open every envelope that comes through would be infeasable. They can only go after the real suspects because it is feasable to do only that. In essence, what I am saying about the govt. is that thy are crying wolf. They can still be efficient in their duties without wholesale access to all the data streams. They want the power to monitor far more traffic than they could ever get warrants for and they know it. I likewise invite you to chip at the cracks in my reasoning as it will improve our arguments in general. Freedom is power. God save the Citizen! Jeff Conn lunaslide On the meridian of time there is no injustice, only the poetry of motion creating the illusion of truth and drama. Henry Miller -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQBvAzD3EHEAAAEDAMVwZzXozPjX18mCenA5fJsdWZXcrhJCxPR+SoVCmR7d4ZVU mwITzPTHo/GyLvJrWyk5YdhheczyY2VSawaMrCN/nWA7K9lwAylbKyPxqBhRYJ3C 2wi2uD5LY2wypNOQyQARAQABtB5KZWZmIENvbm4gPGx1bmFzbGlkZUBsb29wLmNv bT6JAHUDBRAw+1bqS2NsMqTTkMkBAQkTAwCersFbCyk8O0MbGlNcZDAe24CLEWQ0 0C5EHni33W76UsG1bybcLsuMH6HVwLF7IqZivnzc7wkujYPQvCqn8HEYYTld8V9V Cou4dOvA8kV7rHvAn/LuLx7DRruLFrRoPSk= =OIT9 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----