Tim May writes:
At 5:44 AM -0700 11/18/97, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
And a U.S. company could not export expertise to a foreign site to avoid the export laws (ITARS, now EARs). Thus, RSA could not send Rivest and others to Estonia to develop s/w to bypass U.S. export laws. (In a sense, Rivest is non-exportable.)
There are also special rules about "weapons of mass destruction" in the Wassenaar Arrangement rules, and also I think in other US regulations. These make interesting reading -- any form of aid to someone developing nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons is forbidden. That aid can be giving them money, expertise, or even technical documentation. Has anyone at Sun ever sent a Java manual to a pharmaceutical company outside the US? Hmmm. Of course crypto is not currently classed as a weapon of mass destruction, but if there was an electronic terrorist attack on the entire US telephone system it could easily make people think about changing that. And in the meantime the list of chemicals mentioned above is sufficiently broad that almost anyone could be technically guilty of something. (not normally very paranoid) Greg. Greg Rose INTERNET: ggr@qualcomm.com QUALCOMM Australia VOICE: +61-2-9743 4646 FAX: +61-2-9736 3262 6 Kingston Avenue http://people.qualcomm.com/ggr/ Mortlake NSW 2137 B5 DF 66 95 89 68 1F C8 EF 29 FA 27 F2 2A 94 8F