"We find that evidence of appellant's Internet use and the existence of an encryption program on his computer was at least somewhat relevant to the state's case against him," Judge R.A. Randall wrote in an opinion dated May 3.
What the Judge said and how this thread is portrayed by the original poster and by the author of the article when he states:
A Minnesota appeals court has ruled that the presence of encryption software on a computer may be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.
doesn't rise to level of hysteria shown in this thread.
What the Judge says is that the use of encryption, while not a crime in and of it self can be considered 'relevant' to the case against the accused. The accused was convicted two counts of attempted use of a minor in a sexual performance, his search engine history also contained search entries for "Lolita's".
Its perfectly logical for the prosecution to 'bring up' the encryption software while presenting his case.
This is no different then say when some one is charged with planting a bomb and investigators find a particular book about bombs or 'bomb making' ' or watching a movie whose theme is similar to the act. Would you cry and whine about 'Now books or movies = criminals'?
The guy was not charged or convicted of anything related to encryption software, no search or arrest warrant was obtained based on the the fact he had encryption software on his cpu etc...
The defense mostly likely claimed in their appeal that the introduction of encryption software was prejudicial and should have been excluded from the prosecution's case.
My opinion is 'big deal'.
Any assumption made was left up to the jury. They were perfectly capable to ignore the whole encryption testimony and there's no indication that the encryption testimony had any impact on the verdict at all.
