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Subject: Re: Building crypto archives worldwide to foil US-built Berlin Walls (fwd) Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1998 16:43:58 +0100 (MET) From: 3umoelle@informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Ulf =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6ller?=)
Ah, so the call is for folks in Denmark to post the various pieces of currently available software then, not everyone on the planet as it appears.
It is not just about Denmark. The Wassenaar arrangement has been signed by 33 countries, including the US, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and others. Up to now, 30 of these states have allowed to export mass market and public domain crypto software without a license. Only the US, France and NZ did not have the "General Software Note".
Which is EXACTLY my point. People are being asked to put their butts on the line with no infrastructure or plan for what happens when the LEA's show up. Such poor planning is doomed to fail.
The US has exercised extreme pressure at the Wassenaar conference (as one German government official writes) and has managed to get the General Software Note modified. Now the states that have signed the arrangement will have to regulate the export of strong cryptography. There are other places such as Brazil, Iceland, South Africa, India, and even Singapore which do not have any export restrictions.
And look at their social, economic, and civil liberty records. Other than Iceland not one area on your list of places has sufficient resources of the correct type to support this sort of effort. Iceland is about the only place that has any hope at all. Is there any move by any group to start some sort of archive there? Are there any subscribers from Iceland on the CDR? If so, I'd like their view on how realistic it would be to host a site in Iceland.
John Gilmore writes: "I call for volunteers in each country, at each university or crypto-aware organization, to download crypto tools while they can still be exported from where they are, and then to offer them for export from your own site and your own country as long as it's legal." ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Which is exactly what is needed in this situation.
Which, again, is my point. What is Gilmore going to do when they decide to make it illegal and start hassling these folks who were kind enough to back him? What does he OWE them for their participation in HIS movement?
RSAREF is what he has determined he can legally export from the US. So, yes, he is doing what he also asks others to do.
Hm, funny. Looks like EFF owns that site. Gilmore is doing nothing himself. He's using EFF as a shield for personal liability. Why isn't he suggesting that others do this instead of direct and personal action? Why is he not running the gilmore.org site directly? Why isn't he looking at starting some sort of international organization similar to EFF, or expanding EFF to do this sort of stuff and at the same time provide the same sort of legal shield he currently enjoys?
Let me ask you this Ulf, when is YOUR site going up?
My university is already distributing SSLeay, PGP, ssh, cfs and other cypto tools. As long as they continue to do so, I won't make my mirror available on the web, but my own crypto site is going up later this week with another piece of strong crypto software.
Kudos.
What are you going to do for YOUR liberty today? Has Gilmore agreed to help fund YOUR fight of the change in your courts?
Today I am going to create the distribution of the software I have been working on in the past months, have the server set up and, if all goes well, upload the file.
I have made a few thousand dollars on developing crypto software and I am ready to use much of that money to defend my right to distribute the results of my work on the web. I haven't asked John or anybody else to help me.
But John IS asking you, me, and others to help him. ____________________________________________________________________ If I can put in one word what has always infuriated me in any person, any group, any movement, or any nation, it is: bullying Howard Zinn The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------