The decrypts are credited with helping shorten the war by at least two years.

BBC: Raymond 'Jerry' Roberts

The old cable box decrypts its set of data and discards the Passage bits, while a Passage-enabled box decrypts only the Passage-encoded video.

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However, when a device becomes unlocked, the process of jailbreaking it often decrypts previously protected data, and, consequently, can be targeted by malware.

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It checks a user's identity, looks up his rights, contacts a financial clearing-house to arrange payment and, if everything is in order, decrypts the digital work.

ECONOMIST: Digital rights and wrongs

After the unmasking of Fuchs through the Venona decrypts, Moscow planned to impede the development of a Western hydrogen bomb by casting doubt on the loyalty of key scientists.

ECONOMIST: History of espionage: Dark secrets | The

But, if Mr Goldstein loses, the law would seem to have made an odd distinction: code that encrypts, like Mr Junger's, would be freer than code that decrypts, like Mr Goldstein's.

ECONOMIST: Freedom of speech