"snake oil" as sold in the US was essentially capsaicin, which is used today, both as a topical treatment and others, for a variety of muscle/bone/tissue ailments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin#Medical
Whereas snake oil in cryptography tends to be worse. In practice even snake oil algorithms are probably enough protection for short-term, limited use (no one is going to devote real cryptanalysis resources to high school notes), but it can encourage people to have a false sense of security and do things they wouldn't otherwise, or it ends up getting used for purposes not originally intended.
real Chinese snake oil was essentially some kind of omega-3 rich thing for topical application.
And, from the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil
"snake oil" as sold in the US was essentially capsaicin, which is used today, both as a topical treatment and others, for a variety of muscle/bone/tissue ailments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin#Medical
Whereas snake oil in cryptography tends to be worse. In practice even snake oil algorithms are probably enough protection for short-term, limited use (no one is going to devote real cryptanalysis resources to high school notes), but it can encourage people to have a false sense of security and do things they wouldn't otherwise, or it ends up getting used for purposes not originally intended.