Tue, May 11th 2021 10:44am — Tim Cushing Well, someone finally said the quiet part loud: some government officials actually believe the only people who need, want, or use encryption are criminals. Here's Asha Barbaschow with the "encryption is for criminals" news at ZDNet. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) believes there is no legitimate reason for a law-abiding member of the community to own or use an encrypted communication platform. "These platforms are used almost exclusively by SOC [serious and organised crime] groups and are developed specifically to obscure the identities of the involved criminal entities and enable avoidance of detection by law enforcement," the ACIC declared. "They enable the user to communicate within closed networks to facilitate highly sophisticated criminal activity".