Mike Cobb's and Peter Gutmann's tales of mixed signals from UK and NZ security agencies on exporting crypto demonstrate the same conflicting policies of their nations' governments as do the travails of Zimmermann, Bernstein, Karn and Junger with the USG -- lacking clear regulations, the agencies try bluff and obfuscation. The US move to clarify and tighten regulations in recent ITAR and EAR amendments surely will be emulated by other nations, as promised by The Wassenaar Arrangement. It is part of the major shift of responsibility for dual-use items from national security agencies to those handling economic security, and the guidelines are not as black and white for commerce as they are for state -- or at least not as yet strictly codified, regulated and enforced. However, what is happening with crypto is happening with a wide range of dual-use items, as the half-century old national security policy undergoes a transformation into economic security policy, with the pervasive impact on subsidiary procedures and regulations in security, armaments, intelligence, research, invention, manufacturing, law, finance, politics, education and so on. Note that the World Trade Organization is supplanting the United Nations as a forum for dispute resolution (NY Times, 18 February 1997). For more on these State-into-Commerce policy deliberations see: The GAO/NSIAD report "Exporting Dual-Use Items," 14 January 1997: http://jya.com/9724.htm Export Administration Regulations, with related presidential orders and agency rules and regulations: http://jya.com/eartoc.htm Bert-Jaap's site and a 1996 State Department address on The Wassenaar Arrangement: http://jya.com/dos012396.txt The Defense Trade News from January 1993 to October 1995 on the shift of encryption items from the USML to the CCL: http://jya.com/dtn0193 (+ four) "Redefining Security," The Joint Security Commission's February 1994 report to DefSEc and DCI: http://jya.com/jcs.htm