Re: Illegal export of crypto
**** Disclaimer: ****
This is my opinion, and, as I understand it, having an opinion is not
breaking any laws, either in my country, or the US. I have tried to
avoid, wherever possible, saying anything that could *imply* that I was
*thinking* about commiting a felony. Also, I will not be held
responsible for any errors in my interpretation of any laws, rules, or
regulations, as I am human, and prone to mistake or misjudgement.
I am NOT IN THE LEAST showing any desire to commit a felony, this is
nothing but my personal opinion, which may change at any time. I am
showing no ill-will towards the US or its law processes.
******************
Jeff Zeitlin wrote:
> I must speak, before things go too far.
>
> I work for a major law enforcement organization. When I was
> hired, I took an oath to uphold the laws of the jurisdiction I
> was in - which includes the United States and the state I am in,
> as well as the municipality.
>
Fair enough, but, the US government seems to have a problem with the
idea that there are other countries on the internet, besides
themselves. As for upholding the laws of your jurisdiction, that's fair
enough also. So now you've quieted the US portion of this list.
> [snip}
> These obligations hold whether I agree with the law in question
> or not. Under the circumstances, I must advise the members of
> this list - most especially Ralf - to _not_ discuss this matter
> on the list, or even assert a willingness or intent to violate
> any laws. Take it to private mail, if you must discuss it; that
> way, I will not be seeing it, and will not be obligated to report
> it.
>
Why can Ralf not discuss the matter? He does not live in the US, and
hence, is not subject to the US's ITAR rules. Open discussion of
something is not in violation of any laws I know of. If he were to say
"I, Ralf Nieuwenhuijsen, openly declare my intent to allow a citizen of
the United States to break crypto exportation laws, by knowingly
recieving a working strong encryption program from said citizen..." then
perhaps you may be obligated to report it. But, since he has so far,
voiced his opinion, and nothing else, I feel he is breaking no laws, or
showing any intent to do so.
Also, as far as I understand the law, all the person who wrote the
program needs to do, is write up some extensive documentation on the
program, and allow people outside the US to download that. Using Ralf
as an example, again, he could then download this documentation (which
contains no code or executables) and rewrite the program himself. If
I'm wrong in my assumption, I apologize. Also I could get the crypto
progam in question, in printed form, convert it back to binary, and send
it to Ralf as is, or slightly modified to lower the encrytion level,
under my country's export laws, which still follow the since dissolved
COCOM regulations. These laws are *far* less severe than the US's.
(NOTE: I am in no way showing an intent to actually do the above, I am
just stating that it could be done)
Now, in my opinion, the US's crypto export laws are outdated and
obsolete. Not only that, they seems almost...Microsoft-ish. It seems
to me, that the US doesn't want strong encryption to fall into the hands
of a 'dangerous' country. If a country were to start using this strong
encryption, where would the US get it's intelligence from? So the US,
with these laws, continue with its monopoly: They can read what other
countries are hiding, but the other countries can't read what the US is
hiding. Just another extension of the US's grand monopoly. No use
shooting for world domination, Saddam, the US is already there.
Anyways, I *hope* I didn't mess up to badly, and I'm gonna be really
upset if a group of federal agents show up at my door...
So, in conclusion, I say this:
What needs to be done, is a worldwide standard. No programmer wants to
have to write two or more versions of his program to accompany various
import and export laws. Also, as kind of a sidenote: the author of PGP
was in all sorts of hot water for his strong encryption, because it
broke export laws. The charges have since been dropped, and it was
downloadable, useabel, compiled software. Here, Alan Tu wrote a
program, in the spirit of the free trade of information, not to be used
for it's encryption abilities, but to show people his accomplishments,
and to show other people how to do it. At least, that's my take on it.
I'm tired, and I just KNOW I'm gonna regret typing all this out when I
wake up in the morning ...So please don't flame me too badly...
Goodnight all
Greg
**** Disclaimer 2: ****
Again, let me reiterate, I am no implying any intent to break any laws,
and I am just voicing my opinion in a manner that I believe to be
legal. Any laws I may have broken, however unlikely, are due to my
misinterpretation, a simple error, to which we all stand accused at
least once in our lives.
*******************
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