[314] in Cypherpunks
Re: The Halting Problem
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect E)
Wed May 12 17:21:25 1993
Date: Wed, 12 May 93 16:45:31 EDT
From: Brian.Hawthorne@East.Sun.COM (Brian Holt Hawthorne - SunSelect Engineering)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com, peb@PROCASE.COM
> The revelation here
> (for me, anyway) is that if arbitrary crypto were made illegal, the
> burden of proof would be on the prosecution which would have to crack
> the message (at least partially).
I believe the burden would actually be on them to crack the message
entirely. Otherwise, you are applying arbitrary algorithms to what may
be a random stream. If you get something comprehensible out, you have
either partially cracked the message, or run into the British Museum
problem (AKA 100 monkeys with typewriters).
