NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/crypt/4586

Text File | 1992-11-11 | 1.7 KB | 38 lines

Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!news.funet.fi!funic!news.cs.hut.fi!cs.hut.fi!Ari.Huttunen
From: [e-mail] (Ari Huttunen)
Subject: Re: Limits on the Use of Cryptography?
In-Reply-To: [e-mail]'s message of 11 Nov 92 06:12:10 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Lines: 25
Sender: [e-mail] (Uutis Ankka)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:59:28 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Terry Ritter) writes:

!     The police bust an alleged child molester, and take possession
!     of his PC.  They believe that the hard drive contains a full
!     database of young kids who have been *or may be* assaulted.
!     That database is enciphered.

!  You *could* say that cryptography does not molest children, that
!  only molesters molest children.  Or you could say that if ciphers
!  are outlawed, only outlaws will have ciphers, and that criminals
!  would not register keys anyway.  But the district attorney might
!  point out that, if the law required key registration (or even just
!  the delivery of keys *after* a formal court hearing), the molester
!  could at least be convicted on *that* charge, and would not be
!  molesting anybody for a while.

How do you know he indeed is the molester if all you have is
an enciphered *something* and lot's of suspicion? What if the
enciphered *something* is a pile of old love letters? In this
case you would sentence an innocent man to prison for molesting.

I always thought a man is innocent until proven guilty...
--
...............................................................................
Ari Huttunen