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1. If the bill becomes law, how can someone who violates it be punished?

- From the top of my head: Subpoena your service provider's computer records.

That's not a problem. He will find a lot of encrypted messages and images of nude girls. Both is not illegal. :-)

Intimidate your roommate into testifying against you.

I don't have a roommate.

Tapping your phone.

I use encrypted modem connections and Nautilus.

Feds are in the business of putting people behind bars. They are _very_ good at it.

That's the question. How long can they put me behind bars?

I'm betting that the Feds will adopt as a working definition anything that requires a key to decrypt the communications. That means compression software, rot13, and most hash functions are ok.

rot13 is not ok, 13 is the key. Someone should register at the department. :-)

Expert Testimony: "We experimented with 113,296 keys chosen at random and the defendants algorithm took an average of 29,000 years to find each one. It is our professional opinion, therefore, that the defendant is jacking us around and ought to be keelhauled".

Oh boy, wonderful experts.... Hadmut