At 5:44 AM -0700 11/18/97, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
Until recently it was legal for U.S. folks to invest at they saw fit, modulo that they could not invest in Cuba, Yemen, N. Korea, Eastasia, Oceania, and other such Enemies of the People. And a U.S. company could not export expertise to a foreign site to avoid the export laws (ITARS, now EARs). Thus, RSA could not send Rivest and others to Estonia to develop s/w to bypass U.S. export laws. (In a sense, Rivest is non-exportable.) All this may be changing, for the worse. The Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995 made _financial_ support of some list of organizations illegal. This list was finally published, and includes a few dozen "terrorist" organizations. This has been interpreted by many to mean that charitable donations to one of the listed groups, the Irish Republican Army, for example, could be a crime. Will some of these offshore crypto and software companies be placed on this list? Will this make investment in these companies a crime under the Anti-Terrorism Act? I believe this will happen. Maybe not next year, but within five years. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."