The Next Frontier for Encryption Software

In “Encryption Bill: Ignorance Rears Its Head Again” [Sept 15], Jonathan Weber asserts that encryption software “isn’t so tough to create or copy that hard-up Russian mathematicians . . . won’t be able to sate the inevitable demand.” (This is if Congress and the FBI continue to stop exports of encryption software.)

Well, for that matter, what’s the point of even having your data encrypted--couldn’t those same Russian code-breakers figure out the key to any encryption? The computer industry has shown itself to be more adept than the tobacco industry at marketing its products. It has sold billions of dollars of software and hardware to business, schools and homes.

Sometimes the software lives up to its promise and sometimes it doesn’t.

The next frontier, needless to say, is the Internet and the insistence of the computer industry that it can protect our privacy and other sensitive data with encryption (snicker, snicker). The apparently techno-ignorant government has its doubts--and that’s pretty cool.

MATTHEW OKADA

Pasadena