I agree with Michael that an association of crypto with arms is a long reach, unsupported in anything I've seen in the Constitution or related papers. Moreover, any successful link made could be disastrous.

After all, it is well-established--whether we like it or not--that the

It is? Not by precedent, as far as I know. By statute, yes. I'd like to see some cites on this - the only reasonable cite that I know of concerning the ability of the government is the one back in the 40's (I think) that concerned someone possessing an "illegal shotgun" - and, of course, the pseudo-famous case regarding whether or not a convicted felon filling out certain government forms is protected by the 5th amendment. Michael, can you point me in the general direction here?

government can regulate and control access to hydrogen bombs, bazookas, nerve gases, grenades, fully-automatic weapons, and even various kinds of rifles and handguns. I would hate to see crypto truly classified as an armament (beyond what the ITARs say) and thus be subject to the same kinds of regulations as above.

A much stronger claim can be made, I think, that crypto is a form of language or speech, clearly protected by the First Amendment. Thus, writing one's diary in an encrypted form (a common practice in colonial days, interestingly) is a form of language one uses. Thus, "Congress shall make no law..." about this speech or writing. That two people choose to converse in ROT-13 or in RSA or in their own private code is not something the government is authorized to interfere with.

Not *that's* a novel argument, one I hadn't heard before! If true, this could cover a very wide variety of circumstances. If I send my wife email from work and encrypt it, then that's the same as if I sent her a note in Farsi. Interesting implications here... I wonder if there are any cases where, for example, the government took people to court during WWII to prevent them from talking in German or Japanese over the phone, or in letters?

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I know you probably did this by hand, but I think in the dim mists of time, someone posted a program (to net.sources, no less!) that converts text into pig latin. Of course, such a thing is almost trivial to write but it would be interesting . On the other hand, compression isn't illegal, but crypto is. What's the difference? Both render text in a form that is unreadable to the casual observer, and both require some effort on the part of the observer to "decrypt". -- Ed Carp, N7EKG Ed.Carp@linux.org, ecarp@netcom.com 214/993-3935 voicemail/digital pager 800/558-3408 SkyPager Finger ecarp@netcom.com for PGP 2.5 public key an88744@anon.penet.fi "Past the wounds of childhood, past the fallen dreams and the broken families, through the hurt and the loss and the agony only the night ever hears, is a waiting soul. Patient, permanent, abundant, it opens its infinite heart and asks only one thing of you ... 'Remember who it is you really are.'" -- "Losing Your Mind", Karen Alexander and Rick Boyes