I tend to think that encryption should not be regulated, but I don't agree with your analysis either; it's too dismissive of a much more nuanced reality. You c

I tend to think that encryption should not be regulated, but I don't agree with your analysis either; it's too dismissive of a much more nuanced reality. You can very easily make it so all consumer devices ship with software that only uses encryption that the government has escrowed keys for. You can require app stores to have the same requirement. The government requires all sorts of things of people who manufacture products. Of course, they can't regulate the 3d printer or CNC mill in your garage, but that doesn't make regulating mass-produced products a futile effort. Yes, some people will get around it. They will use open-source software that they download and install themselves on devices that allow sideloading apps. But no one in the government expects perfection out of this. They expect that most criminals, most terrorists even, are not so sophisticated, not so careful, that they will avoid being ensnared. Remember that the situation they are trying to avoid is one where EVERYONE'S texts and phone calls are by-default hopelessly inaccessible to the government, even with a warrant (or in the case of foreign targets, even with the most sophisticated HUMINT and SIGINT).