You can perform very strong cryptography on a 70 cent microcontroller. While that is more than 50 cents, the considerations are quite simply not purely cost (an

You can perform very strong cryptography on a 70 cent microcontroller. While that is more than 50 cents, the considerations are quite simply not purely cost (and certainly not to the extent that you quote). Given your explanation, I do not see how my original interpretation is any different from what you actually meant - given that, I must question your reasoning about absolute cost-effectiveness and how much you need to sacrifice for this in practice. I do not disagree with the premise that sometimes you must make tradeoffs based on cost, but I do disagree with the premise that a platform that you yourself say is not so good should be used because to do otherwise is to (potentially) lose a lot of money. If we get to chips that are a few cents a piece and somehow still need encryption, perhaps you are correct. Then we can be at peace with encryption that only defeats casual snooping. In all other cases, this seems like a poor tradeoff.