Ulf Moeller wrote:
I wonder if someone whose Swedish is better than mine could summarize the article? It is at http://www.et.se/datateknik/arkiv/97-02/5.html
After signing the Wassenaar Arrangement, Sweden has written it's own ITAR and there is a subdepartment of the UD, it's Foreign Office/State Department, the ISP (Inspection of Strategic Products), that handles export requests, if need be with the help of the FRA, it's NSA. A representative of the ISP says that only a handful of EU member states are completely cleared by the Wassenaar statutes to be at the importing end of strong crypto: England, France, Holland, Sweden and Germany. Most other EU states could fail because it would be to upgrade them concerning their cryptologic resources. An example is given: the coming Swedish ID smartcard (using DES and 512 bit RSA) would theoretically need a OK from the ISP before being carried over the border to Denmark. A crypto exporter (obviously hardware) complains about harassing bureaucrazy even if Germany is the recipient. So much about that short article. In addition to Goran Axelsson, Sweden's representative in the EU's IT security body whom Ulf is mentioning in his post, Swedish crypto-politics is handled by this guy's boss (at least formally) at the UD, Magnus Faxen. And then there is the FRA (Forsvarets Radioanstalt), a body as secretive as the NSA. They don't officially take part in the discussions at all. Asgaard