> I doubt it, but you missed the point. He's not talking about removing the locks >altogether but that he can live without a cipher lock. Certainly we all want to >protect our personal information as much as our personal property. And because there >are bad guys out there who will use whatever tools are at their disposal to obtain anything of value from us, a certain degree of protection is needed both in the physical and online worlds. If government says I can have 256-bit or 512-bit crypto technology, but > I can't have the latest 1024-bit blowhard crypto, maybe it's because they use that >to ensure national security or protect military secrets. Is it wise that everyone >know how to decipher a secure military communication? I wouldn't think so, and to pr otect that code, they must prevent everyone from having it until they find something better. I think there is some confusion here about how cryptography works. Just because a normal citizen would be able to use 1024- bit blowhard crypto, does not mean it would allow them to decipher the military secrets. If the military is trying to protect their secrets by hiding the ciphers used to encrypt them, then they are very poor ciphers.
Releasing the source code to a good cipher will in no way help someone crack "secrets" that are encrypted with that cipher. If it does, then the cipher, or it's implementation within the "security system" being used, is flawed and shouldn't be trusted. Steve
