Thursday, May 26, 2005

Encryption is criminal intent?

A Minnesota appeals court has unanimously found that the presence of an encryption program on a defendant's computer is evidence of criminal intent. Bruce Schnier says, "I am speechless." I'm almost speechless, but I'd like to push my stunned disbelief aside for a moment to point out the Apple's Mac OS X ships with encryption (the crypto is called file vault). So does Microsoft's Windows XP (the crypto is called EFS, or encrypting file system). My PDA phone has an encryption program on it. So, if you run Windows, or Mac OS X, the courts think you're a criminal, because obviously you have something to hide. Absolutely stunning. What's the Russian for, "yes, comrade officer, I have my papers that allow me to be out after curfew?"