Not good at all. I saw your other posts about the counties system. I just hope the trend doesn't continue. What sad time that we live in where the government doesn't trust the people that are paying their salaries. I'm all for encrypting sensitive info, but blanket encryption goes against what interoperability is all about.
Give it time and someone will figure out a way around encryption. Granted it won't be any time soon as pointed out by my original "Decoding Encryption" thread. My contest started in March of 2007 and is still un-cracked and I even gave out the key towards the end.
Any idea of what type of encryption is being used?