14th BILETA Conference: "CYBERSPACE 1999: Crime, Criminal Justice and the Internet".

An analysis of the role of cryptography to date as used in the commission of crime. This paper will discuss the current regulatory framework and examine whether the proposals emanating mainly from various national law enforcement bodies for tighter national controls of Internet service provision and cryptography are justifiable in the light of the expanding role of e-commerce. The paper will also scrutinise the current case law and other evidence to discover whether the criminal activities which the proposals seek to restrict can, on the available evidence, be minimised by this method, or whether they will have an entirely different outcome.