But, recently, the concept of coded communications has become a hot topic for Internet users, politicians, privacy activists and law enforcement agents. The answer depends on your perspective. At one time, the average person had little interest in this arcane topic, then the domain of spies and large banking institutions. However, the need for and implications of encoding software grow with the number of people and businesses that use the Internet.
International communications compound the problem.
Both parties to coded Internet communications need cryptographic software that interfaces one with the other in order for the recipient to decode what the sender wants to say. Examples include credit card or bank account numbers in commercial transactions or electronically transmitted medical records or digitized medical images. Self-evidently, interception of such communications, or tampering with them, could cause significant harm. Some people further assert that they have the right to keep their communications secret from anyone else as a matter of personal privacy. Presently, though, the U.S. government has strict laws regarding this technology.