Encryption USA Style

So the UK Government want to be able to unlock any encrypted message you send - and will hold you legally responsible for providing the key (unless they listen to the consultation of course....)

In the USA they wish to go further - something civil liberty groups are opposing - they wish to be able to secretly access homes and computers and look for passwords and encryption keys. All without the innocent citizen knowing. (The less innocent citizen may have systems set up to notice these things, we would think.) Printing it off to use as evidence would not be so easy though - more warrants would be needed.

Fear of the use of encryption by terrorists and other criminals is prompting these laws, but leaves many questions and scenarios unanswered.

This fear is also being stirred by the proposals to change the USA export restrictions of highly developed encryption technology. This technology is currently only licensed for export on a case by case basis; new proposals will relax this to a one time technical review. Restrictions on buyers and countries will be in place, but it has been acknowledged that more terrorists and criminals will use encryption.