See also: Congress Mulls Stiffer Crypto Laws (already)

The (ultimate.) real victim in all this: American freedom.

The people who favor restricting crypto export apparently believe that there are no mathematicians in other countries.

The people who favor restricting crypto export apparently believe that there are no mathematicians in other countries.

The RSA cryptosystem is based on Fermat's 'little' Theorem. That's over 300 years old!

[sneering sarcasm] If you don't have anything to hide, what do you care if we look through your mail(windows, trash, etc)[/sneering sarcasm]

Maggots!

Actually, one-time codes (or pads??) are completely unbreakable and centuries old technology. They are just kinda unweildy for boat loads of traffic. But these guys were coming across the border, so it's not clear they needed any sort of codes for communication anyhow.

So it is unlikely crpyto restrictions would have done anything.

The very first thought I had after revulsion at the insanity of these acts was that our personal liberties will be the first thing to go in the quest for an illusion of safety.

Wouldn't better border/immigration/monitoring of aliens be a better idea?

It might get to the point where, if there's war declared, all backbone servers for the Internet might be required by law or Executive Order to include a program that detects any data transfer that does not follow one standard protocol [not Carnivore - preferably no encryptation at all] and delete it.

The law/E.O. can be repealed once war is over, and those programs removed.

It's a small price. Rationing was worse, I'll bet.

Perhaps it is time for us to remind congress that they do NOT provide our freedoms...they exist ONLY to protect them.

No one ever said freedom came without a price tag.

It might get to the point where, if there's war declared, all backbone servers for the Internet might be required by law or Executive Order to include a program that detects any data transfer that does not follow one standard protocol [not Carnivore - preferably no encryptation at all] and delete it.

Eliminating all encryption will kill all web commerce.

How about we just put cameras and microphones in all areas of all buildings ? That makes about as much sense.

Mathematicians? You don't need a mathematician. Just basic knowledge of C, and an internet connection for a few minutes to find the algorithm.

It might get to the point where, if there's war declared, all backbone servers for the Internet might be required by law or Executive Order to include a program that detects any data transfer that does not follow one standard protocol [not Carnivore - preferably no encryptation at all] and delete it.

This doesn't work because of a technique called steganography, the science of hiding the actual message inside of another message that appears to be innocuous. There has been a lot of work on steganography due to the idea that "watermarks" can be hidden inside of digital media in order to assist with digital rights management, i.e. copyright protection.

The law/E.O. can be repealed once war is over, and those programs removed.

Granted if it was limited it would be a reasonable sacrifice, however this is an openended war. Terrorism will not go away soon even if we nuke half the world.

We must all stick together and do what we can, but these sort of things never seem to end after a war. We must be extra vigilant in times of war, the sheeple will be easier to manipulate. It is up to us to stand guard on our freedoms.