I thought the following from CuDigest should serve to illustrate some of the discussion recently on this subject. -Allen

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Computer underground Digest Sun Apr 21, 1996 Volume 8 : Issue 32 [...] Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 10:50:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Doc_Holliday@AWWWSOME.COM(M. Steven McClanahan) Subject: File 3--Canadian "criminalization of technology" [...] Speaking as one who had a Power Macintosh with a 2 gigabyte hard disk drive and all my backups subpeonaed in a civil case, I can tell you that the other side is not likely to want or accept your help in determining what is on your mass storage devices and/or in learning how your systems work. I had to stand by while the attorney corrupted all the data on my hard drive trying to beat my PGP encryption. Then he did the same thing to my back ups. Despite my protests I would have GIVEN them the key to decrypt the data - he didn't trust me. This is in a CIVIL case, imagine how they would feel in a CRIMINAL matter. They spent days trying to get past PGP and could not. Even if they had, all they would have gotten was copies of email between my wife and I. The downside was it took me two weeks to reconstruct my hard drive, time which the courts refused to order the attorney that started all this to pay me for. (They did sanction him after he threatened to punch me during a deposition for refusing to reveal my sources - which were protected by attorney-client privilege - which I thought was interesting; apparently he could waste all my time, but he couldn't hit me.) The court decided my data had no value and that having to rebuild my hard drive was a "minor inconveneince" compared to the "interests of justice." Since it is a no win situation, extending cooperation is problematic. It probably won't do any good. My experience told me most people in law enforcement have not advanced, technologically, past the level of an Atari 2600 and are completely baffled by complex systems. Based on what they did with a Mac system, I doubt they would even be able to access anything now that I use a SPARCstation 4. An attitude seems to have developed in the prosecution of computer crime that "the ends justifies the means." As the voters have gone along like sheep and surrendered many civil rights in the prosecution of drug related crimes, they are similarly doing in the prosecution of computer crimes having to do with the Internet and claims of "child porn." This is extremely dangerous as. If you look long and hard enough on any system,and systems accessible to it, you can, eventually, find something that will offend someone. Therefore, applying the rule that "the ends justifies the means," everyone who connects to a computer network is thereby "criminalized." The frigthening part is that, whether or not the innocent victim is doing anything illegal, the reams of good press such actions bring for prosecutors and police just encourages them. After it is all through and nothing illegal is found, law enforcement still looks good in the press, (because the public has been whipped up into such a frenzy they preceive any action as "good"). The victims of such harassment are always "guilty" in the eyes of the public, simply because the government took any action.