Use crypto, face a death squad

[pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)]

There have been various rumours and comments over the past few years that the 
use of crypto in certain countries (Syria, Iraq, possibly China) is very 
dangerous for the end user, but very little actual evidence to substantiate 
this.  About a week ago I got some evidence (well, something better than the 
usual rumours) on the situation with using crypto in Iraq which people might 
find interesting.
 
I was talking to someone who worked for a large multinational corporation 
which maintains a comprehensive directory of who to contact in each country 
they operate in (basically every country on earth, this was before the gulf 
war so Iraq was included) for any kind of emergency.  This consists of a huge 
file of data intended to cover every imaginable type of situation.  Included 
in the information on Iraq was a comment to the effect that you should never, 
ever use any form of encryption when sending messages to the contact people 
there.  He can't remember the exact details any more, but the implication was 
that any encrypted messages sent to them would result in them quietly 
disappearing.  Since this was a very big company with a lot of sensitive 
information which it would go to great lengths to protect, I would assume they 
had very good reasons for advising against the use of crypto in this instance.
 
Peter.