From: "Sparkes, Ian, ZFRD AC" <ian.sparkes@17.dmst02.telekom400.dbp.de>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 22:07:15 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com
Subject: Legality of *non*-encryption
Message-ID: <000001b0000000c4*/c=de/admd=dbp/prmd=telekom400/o=dmst02/ou=17/s=sparkes/g=ian/@MHS>
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I heard an interesting new slant on the legality of 
encryption today.

I was talking to a colleague who is employed in a law firm 
here in Germany. It appears that under the current 
interpretation of German law, communications of a 
confidential nature (for example, contracts, medical 
records and so forth) over an insecure network *MUST* be 
encrypted to protect the Client. It is therefore a breach 
of German law to send unencypted eMail, unless it can be 
proved that every stage of the transmission happens over 
internal (secure?) paths.

I will dig further on this - perhaps there is a useful 
precedent to be established here. At very least we might be 
able to keep lawers (and doctors) off the net ;-)