Another poll had the opposite results (Score 1)

I don't normally watch TechTV, but when I saw the topic for Silicon Spin I had to watch it. It was the very same topic this poll addresses. I would recommend checking out the story at Silicon Spin's site.

The basic issue is one that I heard a pastor say: "You can have safety, or you can have freedom. I would much rather have freedom." He was refering to the continual invasion of privacy on the road (cameras at traffic lights, seat belt laws, etc.). The point is well taken even in this regard.

The one thing that stood out to me is that the decision that America came to in the 90's when there wasn't political pressure or tragedies was that encryption technologies were good for America. This was a public debate involving people from all facets of the encryption arena. The NSA was always for enabling a "back door"--which is currently infeasible. The whole issue came up again when we had the terrorist attacks. We should not respond emotionally about this topic at all.

The fact remains: Bin Laden does not use American cryptography technologies--he uses Russian cryptography developed for the mob. Even if America was able to pass this horrendous law, and cause other countries to follow suite, it would not solve the problem! What we would have is businesses in countries with the law would be crippled due to weak encryption until an algorithm that allowed an authorized third party to view the message was done correctly. That is not acceptible. The law would do more harm than good.

The whole definition of the encryption problem is how do you keep messages between two (2) parties safe from any outside observer. In my opinion three parties has one that is uninvited.