Reminder that France actually did this in the 90s, because why wouldn't such an exceptional country with glorious leaders do that? Clearly they knew was was best.
> Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month jail term.
This news item from 1999 is about France finally making it legal to use toy ciphers to encrypt documents in France. Let that sink in. Trivial toy ciphers were actually illegal to use in france for 3+ years.
This (I think '97) was when I realized that France is not your typical western democracy style country. Nothing about France is typical.
(And, yes, the it was that Dominique Strauss-Kahn.)
https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/15/france_to_end_severe_...
> Until 1996 anyone wishing to encrypt any document had to first receive an official sanction or risk fines from F6000 to F500,000 ($1000 to $89,300) and a 2-6 month jail term.
This news item from 1999 is about France finally making it legal to use toy ciphers to encrypt documents in France. Let that sink in. Trivial toy ciphers were actually illegal to use in france for 3+ years.
This (I think '97) was when I realized that France is not your typical western democracy style country. Nothing about France is typical.
(And, yes, the it was that Dominique Strauss-Kahn.)