We were warned of hidden messages in songs by The Beatles. Well, I wasn't much of a Beatles fan, but I listened attentively for these messages. Somehow, I managed to get through those formative years without joining a satanic cult. Every generation has its share of fear-mongering stories that fuel the suspicions of the paranoid. Urban legends and bogus virus warnings are prime examples of how people are easily manipulated by social engineering.
Cryptography is the latest case in point.
We are told that child pornographers and drug dealers use cryptography to carry out their nefarious activities. It's easy to get sympathy from the general public and rally support for government action to curb such criminal behavior. In essence, the breaking news is that bad guys use computers to streamline their operations. I'll bet they use phones as well. Other reports about these tech-savvy terrorists claims that they're using steganography in addition to cryptography to hide their secret messages.