From a high-level source in contact with an *extremely* high level source: Rumor: Moby Crypto was targeted because G. Ward intended to include PGP on distribution disks. The investigation is primarily PGP oriented, and G. Ward is just a bystander who got caught up. PRZ & PGP is the essential target. Notes (1) phrasing of the subpoenas definitely confirms this -- PGP is mentioned in both. (2) can we find any Usenet postings where G. Ward announced intent to distribute PGP with Moby Crypto to help confirm this? Ward posted a note that (in essence) asked for help in evading the ITARs. (Well, I suppose it could have been someone forging a posting...). He went so far as to offer to provide mailing labels to someone abroad who would redistribute Moby Crypto, though from a country where that would be legal -- but never said how the first copy would get to the trans- shipment point. Some reasons were given why this sequence was going to be technically legal -- but if you were a U.S. attorney investigating the export of cryptographic software, it's the sort of thing that almost has to be investigated. Face it -- if Ward *wanted* to generate a test case, he couldn't have done a much better job; a private note to the authorities could have been ``misfiled'', but an announcement to tens of thousands of readers around the world? C'mon -- they may or may not be stupid, and they may or may not be paranoid, but their entire raison d'etre is to wield power, and Grady just slapped that authority in the face. Spitting at your local traffic cop would have been a lot safer. As for PKP -- *somehow*, it wandered out of the U.S. Probably, someone in power decided that that finally needed investigating in detail, to see if a law was broken. And Sternlight is right -- if they decide to indict, they may throw in charges of importing IDEA, though I doubt that they'd indict just on those grounds; in an era of key escrow, they'd certainly like a court to rule they had the power to exclude subversive foreign crypto.... --Steve Bellovin