Of course there is no law or regulation that prohibits individuals from accepting encrypted email from the blacklist countries (or an ISP from forwarding it). Though perhaps government pressure or simple misunderstanding can explain the situation you encountered. I'd be interested in any verifiable info on this. -Declan On Mon, Jul 16, 2001 at 02:29:16PM -0700, codehead@ix.netcom.com wrote:
I just got off the phone with one of the customer service people at NAI, who informed me that "Encrypted e-mails from certain countries aren't accepted in the US" and that accepting encrypted email from one of the "black list" (i.e., North Korea, Libya, Iran, Iraq, China, etc.) is illegal under US law.
When queried about the issue of *accepting* encrypted e-mail from a "black-list" country, the customer rep stated that this is what he was told by higher-ups in the company.
Never mind the issue of web-based email, mail originating from the dot-com, dot-edu, dot-net or dot-org TLDs, spoofed headers or open relays. It was impossible to resist quoting Tim May on the transparency of national borders, and to point out that so far, anyway, there was no ubiquitous filter at the borders. The rep backpedaled and stated that "some" ISPs, specifically AOL, were choosing not to accept such email.
Anyone have any idea if any ISPs are refusing to accept encrypted email from "black-listed" countries?
Or is this just a matter of NAI cluelessness?