[gizzlon]

".. government owns every ISP, you could take part in encrypted communication, and I don't think there's any way for them to stop that.."

Sure they could: just disallow any "unknown" encrypted communication. For example requiring the en/decryption to happen at the ISP or only allowing traffic they can decrypt and check.

(I'm not saying this is likely, but it could be implemented and most folks wouldn't care)

[baddox]

> Sure they could: just disallow any "unknown" encrypted communication.

Even then, it's impossible to prevent arbitrary communication. You can always hide your message inside of allowed messages (steganography), or an even more basic albeit inefficient technique: just use the timing between allowed messages to encode your hidden message.

[pavel_lishin]

How do you trivially decide what's an encrypted file, and what's simply a highly compressed gzip archive?

[zachsnow]

You err on the side of "it's encrypted, and you're under arrest." False positives aren't the "bad guy's" concern.

Not particularly serious. A little maybe.

[ThaddeusQuay2]

In such a situation, the upcoming SOGA (Stop Online Gzips Act) shall provide a reliable decidability methodology.