At 11:38 AM 8/2/96 -0400, KDBriggs1@aol.com wrote:
<< Current export standards allow export of 512-bit RSA for encrypting (including key exchange), 1024 bit for signing. >> 1024-bit for signing? Do you have a reference for this? I was under the impression that digital signatures were not covered by export restrictions.
I've heard this also, but remember that the export standards are "whatever specific products we decide you can export" rather than a formal law you can design to and be sure they'll obey. The ITAR doesn't cover pure authentication software, only software capable of preserving privacy through encryption. Some public-key signature algorithms only do signature, some only do privacy, RSA does both. Thus, especially for software like Netscape which _does_ have encryption capabilities, they can get away with limiting the strength of the RSA signature portion because it's part of the encryption package, and because RSA signing is just encrypting with your private key instead of your public key. Someone _could_ use an RSA signature program to encrypt short data (like keys) if they wanted to work at it, and while bugs in software are of course entirely unheard of that would make this easier, there's still the risk that those Crafty Furriners might disassemble the crypto code from Netscape and reassemble it with the limits removed. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> Defuse Authority!