> > If I could talk to the pirate community, I'd say, "MP3 swappers, consider
> this: You might be getting free content now, but what you ultimately might be
> doing is giving the government an excuse to snoop on your every communication,
> whether voice or data. Is free content really worth it?"
>
> This sort of argument always says to me, "The author does not really understand
> strong crypto." I'm increasingly less worried about the government (or anyone!)
> snooping on my communications, because the gap between cryptography and
> cryptanalysis (deciphering encrypted material) continues to widen, heavily
> favoring the cryptographers.

The only problem with that is that the government is not beholden to the same rules that everyone else is. If the government can't break your encryption, the government can force to to break it for them. If the government suspects you of trafficking in illegal information - copyrighted software or music, child pornography, national secrets, or whatever else - the government can force to to prove that you aren't. Or the government can make it a crime for you to encrypt your data, and then you're screwed either way.

Despite his reliance on slippy slopes, I see his point. What he's saying is that, yes, that's a law you can break right now and probably not get caught. But the natural reaction of government will be to make more restrictive laws and take away more of your freedoms for the sake of enforcing its existing laws. You're absolutely right - the government can't crack 128-bit encryption any better than I can. But I can't make it a crime for you to encrypt things, and John Law can.

Dar "damn the man" ien