software india
Is it legal to develop a cipher breaker software?
<p>Is it legal to develop a cipher-breaker software/algorithm?
What about it's legality in India?</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>This is going to depend very much on just what sort of encrypted content such software is used to decrypt.  For example, if this allows the user to circumvent an access control mechanism to copyright-protected content, it may be unlawful under the anti-circumvention provisions fc the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). If it is used to gain access to confidential communications transmitted electronically, it may be unlawful under various &quot;wiretapping&quot; laws.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge there is no law making the development of a code breaking program illegal.  But some uses of such a program would be. And if a program was distributed or marketed for such uses, that distribution might itself be unlawful.</p>
<p>This is also, if stated in a general way, a very hard problem. Any well-designed cryptographic system will have a sufficiently large keyspace to make brute-force search impractical. Other known attacks require at least one of:  access to a very large volume of encrypted text; access to significant volume of encrypted text and matching clear text; interception of key-distribution channels; interference with key distribution; knowledge of properties of the key-generation system. In short more than just a &quot;program&quot; is needed, and if a modern competently implemented cryptographic system is involved, more than just ciphertext. Obtaining cleartext or other inputs may require unlawful techniques</p>
