It's interesting, but I was really surprised when I saw this. The idea to put a penalty on use of cryptography with intent to commit crime is nothing new. I'm actually reading the congressional report (yawn) from 1995 when a policy panel was convened of industry experts. Unfortunately this was the only recommendation that they made that was really bad. All the others were really good, de-regulation of the Munitions Control List, etc. Basically allowing unescrowed crytographic programs out to the public. Unfortunately they didn't forsee the ubiquitous use that would come in the future and I don't think that they really thought through how the gov't would use this type of penalty in the future. ( I hope this post is coherent, I need more coffee!

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