[H-GEN] LAN Magazine: Crypto Article.

[Raymond Smith]

Greetings,

Apologies if this has been seen before.

The June 1998 issue of LAN Magazine Australia/New Zealand has several
articles on Cryptography in Australia that are well worth reading.

One point that surprised me was that the export of Cryptographic Software
from Australia is controled in an analogous way to the US. People either
need a permit (for a particular program), or a license to export. 
Approval is given by the Director of Strategic Policy and Operations
(STPO) of the Department of Defence (DoD) in consultation with the Defence
Signals Directorate (DSD -- which is our equivalent to the NSA).

Of particular interest is that the Cryptozilla Project may be violating
our export regime. Apparently the current STPO was embarrsed when at an
international conference he said that Australia wanted to relax it's
restrictions on 40-bit encryption and was knocked back because "Australia
is already exporting 128-bit encryption". He is quoted as saying "It was
an embarrasment to Australia because our controls were being flaunted".

I don't know which is scarier, that encryption is controled, or that the
guys in Canberra didn't know about Cyptozilla.

Raymond. 

---
raymond at humbug.org.au