From: billmcc@seanews.akita.com (Bill McCormick)
Subject: Re: Limits on the Use of Cryptography?
Organization: SEANEWS - Seattle Public Access News & Mail
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 07:03:39 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.061210.9933@cactus.org> ritter@cactus.org (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.
>
> Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
> cryptography to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
> reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
> kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a computer, why the
> government should "allow" private cryptography which could hide
> this sort of information.

===

The police bust an alleged child molester, and take possession
of his safe.  They believe that the safe contains a full
list of young kids who have been *or may be* assaulted.  The
safe is locked.

Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
locksmithing to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a safe, why the
government should "allow" private locks which could hide
this sort of information.

===

The police bust an alleged child molester, and take possession
of his records.  They believe his records contain a full
list of young kids who have been *or may be* assaulted.  The
records are written on paper in a strange language no one has
seen before.  The alleged child molester claims that it is
in Pre-Babylonian prune-trading language, and he is the only
person left alive who knows it.

Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
historical linguistics to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a computer, why the
government should "allow" someone to study historical languages which
could hide

===

The police bust an alleged child molester, and attempt to
take possession of his records, but before they could -- he
flushed them down the toilet.

Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
toilets to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a toilet, why the
government should "allow" private toilets which could hide
this sort of information.

===

The police bust an alleged child molester, and try to take possession
of his records.  They believe that he has a full list of young kids
who have been *or may be* assaulted.  Unfortunately he didn't write
anything down and maintains the list in his head.

Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
personal thoughts to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
kids, someone who doesn't own or work with a brain, why the
government should "allow" people to keep public records.

===

The police bust an alleged child molester, and try to 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.  The PC
has been hidden.

Now, your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to defend
the right to keep property to ordinary voters, congress people and newspaper
reporters.  You also need to explain to a relative of one of those
kids, someone who doesn't own or work with private property, why the
government should "allow" private property which could be moved without
government permission and used to hide this sort of information.

===

Just some thoughts

Bill
-- 
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