[H-GEN] LAN Magazine: Crypto Article.

[Anthony Towns]

On Mon, Jun 29, 1998 at 11:47:57AM +1000, Raymond Smith wrote:

(the LAN article was quite good IMHO too. Well worth a read if you can
find a copy)

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

Just an extra note -- according to the article, only physical software
is known to come under the provisions of the legislation/DoD document.
Apparently, it's pretty doubtful that electronic export is controlled at
all (ie, the DoD could make a case in the courts for it, but the outcome
wouldn't be particularly certain), although the officials quoted in the
article more or less stated that they'd take any such activities as a
personal affront.

Also, unlike in the US, no mention of bitsize is explicitly made. From
memory, you can't even export eight-bit crypto (rot-n, say), without a
permit; although on the other hand it does leave open the possibility
of actually getting a permit for 1024bit crypto.

We do have some provisions for personal export of crypto software -- if
you take a laptop out of the country with PGP on it, but make absolutely
sure that no nasty foreigners get a copy of it, that's okay.

I don't think the governments of the world have quite realised that it's
not really the crypto itself that people make money from exporting,
it's the interfaces that let people use it who aren't risking their
lives or their livlihood by not being cypherpunks.

The article also noted that having crypto's export control managed by the
DoD wasn't exactly likely to diminish the bias towards law enforcement
than commerce.

Once again, well worth reading if you have an interest in these areas.

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.

      ``It's not a vision, or a fear. It's just a thought.''
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