Encrypted files in terror case

[Joe Thomas <jthomas@webwonderinc.com>]

Excerpts from a N.Y. Times News Service piece available at
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/071896/info12_18308.html :


NEW YORK (Jul 18, 1996 02:00 a.m. EDT) -- In the seven weeks since the
trial of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef began, the case, charging a plot to blow
American jumbo jets out of the sky, has come to hinge on one off-white
laptop computer.

[Most of the story, dealing with the defense contention that Philipine
police altered files on the laptop, deleted.]

Several witnesses reported that some computer files were in code, part
of which the police could not decipher. Last week, after the jury
adjourned for lunch, Duffy [the judge in the case] prodded the defense
to point out that encoding files was not unusual and that some software
programs offer such an option.

"I don't want the jury to think that encryption is something that only
bad guys do," Duffy said.