If I made a proprietary piece of software that provided AES-256 encryption for IM, voice chat, and file transfer would this itself be illegal? The way it'd be set up is people would run the service entirely on their own. There would be no retention of data by 3rd party or even on the person's machine. It would be stored in memory for smallest time possible then dumped away. It would not be saved. There'd be no backdoor, master key, etc. The ONLY way to read the data would be to have a connection to the server with a valid key to read data sent from other people connected to it. It seems this is a project idea to keep on the shelves as in the US and all over the world something like this would be extremely illegal. The only way to obtain the key would be from the server operator him/herself, or if you knew someone who had a valid key that connects to that server and they shared it with you.
To clarify even more:
I want to know if itd be illegal to create and release a software that effectively encrypts internet communication such as IM and voice chat, and any file transfer end to end--in a context where there is no way to read the data unless your client has the key to decrypt received data in the event you are connected to a server, or intercepting data sent from clients or server and trying to decrypt it yourself with brute force. Those are the only 2 ways. Otherwise you'd have to lift the key somehow from the server machine or client machine in the event the person has their USB still plugged in(unless it's on harddrive of course)and you can somehow read from it from a remote location or acquire the Harddrive/USB itself or have access to the physical client's or serve machine itself. In other words, in the event of a police investigation regarding something that when on that was illegal during the use of the app... authorities would have to go to some pretty pretty great lengths to get anywhere. But they'd have to catch the crime happening live, as no text, voice, or file transfer data will EVER live on the server's harddrive or client's harddrive(just in memory as briefly as possible). The only other way would be screenshot. The only other way I can think of would be to catch suspect using the app, get their computer that has the app on it with key in place to use with the server, and get the people connected to the serve to somehow admit to crimes without them knowing the police are on the other side of this suspects client and not that person. Once again, some extreme lengths. I wouldn't want to be responsible for any of that. If people took it and used it for bad that needs to be their problem, not mine. If theres a chance I could owe money, or serve jail time, theres no way it's worth it.