Exactly this. This is also how gun control in the UK works. In the UK, possessing a firearm is already a greater offense than most of the crimes you could comm

Exactly this. This is also how gun control in the UK works. In the UK, possessing a firearm is already a greater offense than most of the crimes you could commit with that firearm, shy of actually shooting/killing someone. This is also why I laugh when people say cryptocurrencies can't be banned. Of course they can be. It's an order of magnitude easier to prove someone has access to or owns cryptocurrencies than it is to prove they used that crypto to commit a crime. (Back to cryptoGRAPHY) - this is probably what they're going for - it's very difficult to prove you used encryption software to exchange information on criminal activities, so instead they just make the act of encrypting stuff illegal. The problem is; cryptography is everywhere, and is a fundamental part of how the modern world works. Trying to ban it isn't possible without breaking things like corporate VPNs, etc. - things that every day normal people will MISS. Ban strong encryption apps? You can literally just set up a VPS, SSH into it and use the "write" Unix command on the server locally. If the government can crack that you've lost all security on the internet.