On Thu, 30 Jan 1997, Sean Roach wrote:
At 11:14 AM 1/29/97 -0700, Michael Paul Johnson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, Mark Rosen wrote:
I'm curious as to exactly what the ITAR/EAR/Whatever says specifically about "unrestricted FTP sites." My program, Kremlin, is available for
You should check the exact text yourself, but the way I read the EAR, you are not "exporting" strong cryptographic software without a license (exept to Canada, which needs no license) if you do things "such as" (1) have the guests to your site acknowledge that the EAR restricts export, (2) have the guests affirm that they can legally get the software (proper citizenship or residency & location), and (3) "check the address of the destination computer to see if it is in the USA" or Canada. The last one, I interpret rather loosely to mean that if the guest's email address domain isn't one commonly used in the USA or Canada, then I deny access. We all know that not all .com addresses are North American, but chances are really good that if the address ends in .ru, then the destination machine is probably not in North America. This is not a perfect way to prevent export, of course, but it is what the regulations say, as I read them. For a pointer to the regulations and to my access request form and crypto site, see http://www.sni.net/~mpj/crypto.htm ... An easy crack to that would be to request access from a hotmail, or similair, account. This account would show up as being on US soil while the account holder would not necessarily be so. In this way, someone with an account ending in your .ru would get through because h[is/er] e-mail request originated from inside the U.S.
If that is the only chink in the armor you see, then you aren't looking very hard. The point of this system is not to prevent exports, but to (1) comply with the letter of the law by discouraging export in the specified manner, (2) to comply with the spirit of the law by reducing the number of exports of cryptographic software from the USA, while (3) making publication of strong cryptographic software in North America easy and safe from legal persecution. Without point (3), the national security of the USA would be harmed, IMHO, by the fact that proportionally more dishonest people (the ones the NSA and FBI are quict to draw attention to) than honest ones (the majority of the people who want to use strong cryptography to protect their privacy and business interests from the dishonest folks) would use strong cryptography. The only reason I can think of that the U. S. Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States of America and his staff have determined that export of strong cryptographic software can harm "national security" even when such software already is available outside of the USA, is that they are really more concerned about the numbers of people that use such software regularly, and therefore, they want to limit the total bandwidth of distribution capacity and ease of retrieval of such software. Export controls can effectively do both, even if they cannot realistically prevent export. Think about it. It was a pain to set up the EAR-compliant site that I set up compared to a simple site for global distribution, and few people would go through the hassle. Many major information services and ftp sites simply disallow strong cryptographic software rather than go through the hassle. Because of this, it is probably true that fewer people find, download, and use strong cryptographic software. Until more people set up more strong cryptographic software distribution sites and write more good, secure, robust, easy-to-use cryptographic software such that it is about as easy to find and use it as not to, the Feds win. Their point is proven. Fewer people use strong cryptography than would otherwise, and some small (but, to them, significant) percentage of those people who were discouraged from using strong cryptographic software might have used that software in a criminal activity. Too bad about the good guys who could have prevented computer crime or worse with the same technology, huh? http://www.sni.net/~mpj/crypto.htm Michael Paul Johnson Opinions herein are not necessarily Exabyte's. Work: mpj@exabyte.com http://www.exabyte.com Personal: mpj@csn.net http://www.csn.net/~mpj BBS 303-772-1062