At 5:50 PM 12/6/95, Ernest Hua wrote:
The main point is that there is no such thing as the "letter of the law". What they enforce is much broader than that, and how they enforce it is much more subtle than clear-cut criminal prosecution. Therefore, you cannot just use literal loop holes just because it's not clear, because the law they are enforcing is not clear either.
This response should almost be an FAQ for this crowd.
Indeed. In fact, my Cyphernomicon FAQ contains numerous discussions about ITAR and hooks. For example: - Dan Bernstein has argued that ITAR covers nearly all aspects of exporting crypto material, including codes, documentation, and even "knowledge." (Controversially, it may be in violation of ITAR for knowledgeable crypto people to even leave the country with the intention of developing crypto tools overseas.) and 10.10.6. "Can ITAR and other export laws be bypassed or skirted by doing development offshore and then _importing_ strong crypto into the U.S.?" - IBM is reportedly doing just this: developing strong crypto products for OS/2 at its overseas labs, thus skirting the export laws (which have weakened the keys to some of their network security products to the 40 bits that are allowed). + Some problems: - can't send docs and knowhow to offshore facilities (some obvious enforcement problems, but this is how the law reads) - may not even be able to transfer knowledgeable people to offshore facilities, if the chief intent is to then have them develop crypto products offshore (some deep Constitutional issues, I would think...some shades of how the U.S.S.R. justified denying departure visas for "needed" workers) - As with so many cases invovling crypto, there are no defining legal cases that I am aware of. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."