Lab Notes

A court in Minnesota ruled that the presence of PGP on a user's computer demonstrated crimial intent. While I'm glad that this guy was convicted, the evidence ruling makes no sense to me. Most people use encryption to prevent crime, not to commit crime — think of how many credit card transactions are protected by SSL every day. Every machine in the office here has multiple pieces of encryption software. Today, every Windows PC and Mac ships with extensive encryption capabilities. Given that you almost can't use a computer without using encryption, it's a strange and surprising ruling.