Washington - New Internet-television systems from Sony Corp. and Philips Electronics Co. are technically munitions under U.S. export controls and cannot be shipped to the companies' worldwide sales networks, it was disclosed last week.
Sony officials said the company's TV set-top box designed by WebTV of Palo Alto, Calif., includes a state-of-the-art 128-bit code encryption system for electronic commerce. This far exceeds the 40-bit encryption code permissible for export under the U.S. Munitions Control List.
At the Bernstein case oral arguments last September, I distinctly remember the government lawyer stating that the United States does not restrict "financial cryptography." Perhaps he should have qualified his argument somewhat. This statement bothered me, as I cannot understand how an encryption algorithm can "know" that it is encrypting a financial transaction, rather than some non-financial document that would be export-restricted. Martin Minow minow@apple.com