I noticed a rhetorical trick/trap that I've seen a lot lately, in the recent article posted about Phil Zimmermann. there is an infamous case of a child pornographer or pedophile in California that is sometimes cited by law enforcement representatives as a good example of the evils of encryption: supposedly he encrypted his diary and it couldn't be unlocked by them. this was mentioned in the article. but I have a question: how did they know it was his diary? I've noticed that people tend to often make conceptual leaps like this that are wholly unjustified. it is easy to get their opposition to bite down on the trap, when they start arguing about things like "well, everyone should be free to encrypt whatever they like". the next time you run into someone using arguments with words like "criminals" in it, ask them, "how do you know they are criminals"? when you use their terminology, and argue in terms of it, you have almost already lost the argument. there is a big mindset in law enforcement to see "suspects" as "criminals". but that is mistaking means and ends. the process identifies criminals in the end, after a trial, but at no prior date. here's another example: I was watching a talk show in which the recent Israeli bombing was discussed by a bunch of very obviously frenzied commentators who were calling for Arafat's head on a stick. one of them insisted that our government had given the names of the involved terrorists to Arafat some time ago and that he did nothing. well, the question is: how do we know those names on the list are the actual terrorists? how do we know Arafat did nothing? but the other commentators were totally lost this basic rhetorical trap. they said, "well, assuming what you say is true, then... blah blah". but the obvious question is, "how do we know these names mean anything"? there is an amazing tendency in our culture in elsewhere not to question authority. when we see some law enforcement agent at a press conference, and they talk about "criminals", the press immediately latches onto the terminology and asks things like "when will they be caught"? etc. instead of, "how do you know they are culpable?" in crypto arguments as well where there is a lot of emotional rhetoric, I have noticed people have a tendency to try to debunk things that require no debunking, such as the FUD that has been sown over that infamous CA pedophile. the test is avoiding tricky rhetorical traps. there are some battles that don't need to be fought. just remember that calm, deadly retort whenever you hear someone getting excited, and ask them, "how do you know they are his diaries?"