On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Dave Emery wrote:
In the US there is not yet a ban on exchange of information because of the potential first amendment issues, but there are (and have been since the late 1980s) felony level bans with $500,000 fines for each incident on the manufacture, assembly, modification, import, export, sale and distribution of any device or equipment primarily of assistance in the unauthorized decryption of satellite cable programming or direct to home satellite.
There is a law in Pennsylvania that bans the distribution of "plans or instructions" for devices or modifications of devices that can be used for theft of services. Full text at: http://moose.erie.net/~italo/sb0655p0687.html Excerpt: 10 (2) sells, possesses, distributes, gives or otherwise 11 transfers to another[,] or offers, promotes or advertises for 12 sale [any instrument, apparatus, equipment or device 13 described in paragraph (1) of this subsection,] any: 14 (i) unlawful telecommunication device, or plans or 15 instructions for making or assembling the same, under 16 circumstances evidencing an intent to use or employ such 17 [instrument, apparatus, equipment or] unlawful 18 telecommunication device, or to allow the same to be used 19 or employed for a purpose described in paragraph (1) [of 20 this subsection], or knowing or having reason to believe 21 that the same is intended to be so used, or that the 22 aforesaid plans or instructions are intended to be used 23 for making or assembling such [instrument, apparatus, 24 equipment or device.] unlawful telecommunication device; 25 or At the L0pht we distribute a CD that contains plenty of technical data for modifying telecommunications equipment and for building your own from easily obtained parts. We do not ship our CD to Pennsylvania due to this law since we cannot be assured that the intent of the purchaser is not to defraud a telecommunication service provider. Since information can be used for good or bad we are pretty sure that some of the purchasers from Penn will use this information illegally. This goes against everything the L0pht stands for but we do not have the resources to fight this in court. Weld Pond weld@l0pht.com http://www.l0pht.com/~weld