Well, there's your problem. Until Parsons is well and truly out of the business, I can't imagine there's going to be any serious turnaround.

Don't forget the problem of keeping guns from getting back into the population at any given time. This goes back to the same issue you first spoke to: criminals will still obtain guns, and those who respect the law of the land won't. Essentially, I put this whole discussion into much the same frame as the "war on drugs," meaning things can't be uninvented and attempts to overly regulate many of them may result in more net harm than good.

There are many variables you haven't accounted for. Quoting from Crime in the United States:

D.C. has a long history of highly restrictive gun laws. Why then does D.C. have double the violent crime rate of Tennessee, and one hundred times that of Maine? It's also worth noting that Maine has very few restrictions on gun ownership. See how this works?

[sideband attempt 1 at obtaining a reply] I'm perfectly willing to burn the karma expended from potential "off topic" moderation of this comment to ask you the following question, which is likely to be considered highly "interesting" by anyone interesting in safeguarding privacy: Why haven't you replied to my last question [regarding TrueCrypt and the value of signing keys]?

Why haven't you replied to my last question?

The concern isn't compromise of TC by an insider. The concern is forced conveyance of signing keys to an intelligence agency. Are you aware of the consequences of such a scenario? I suspect you're feigning ignorance at this point in an attempt to minimize perceived risk. Why would you do that?

Please accept my apologies for the delayed reply. You appear to be lacking firsthand experience with interactions involving certain law enforcement agencies and persons who are subject to device examination. The first step will be production of a bit for bit copy of the digital media in question, followed by a quick analysis of the disk image. In many cases, said analysis will rapidly identify media regions which are likely to represent "hidden containers", and interesting interactions between the owner of the device and law enforcement personnel will commence shortly thereafter.

This may disappoint you, but it speaks directly to my original statement regarding the utility of hidden containers. The link included in my prior post was mostly intended to spur further thought, in the hopes that you would consider (at a minimum) the scenario I've just described. Given my apparent failure to spark that trail of reasoning, I elected to provide a more direct example in this post. Cheers.

Typically, the FBI or Secret Service send NSLs. It should be noted that such letters may be generated based on cooperation with other agencies, however.

Why not just link to the original work instead of some blog entry? Reflections on Trusting Trust

Although you have acknowledged the existence of signing keys, you have still failed to express understanding of the utility of those keys.

They hold signing keys. Are you aware of the purpose of those keys?

As others have noted, you've just handily demonstrated that you have absolutely no business commenting on issues like these. Failure to grasp the significance of signing keys in this context is breathtakingly stupid.

Hidden containers are less useful than you might imagine in practice for a variety of reasons. Some of these points are relevant. I don't have any use for hidden containers, although I do use LUKS on a large number of systems.

Given the fact that projects like this have a tendency to shut down in the middle of security audits, it must be curtains for OpenSSL. Just look at what happened to TrueCrypt!

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pst, it's a joke
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I cannot deny this truth. Sir, you are a champion.