NOTICE: This is the letter from the Digital Privacy and Security Working Group sent to the White House 12/06/93, urging the Administration to lift export controls on DES, RSA and other mass market encryption without ^^^^^^^^^^ ?? requring legislation.
Why only "mass market" encryption? The company I work for is developing a collection of runtime libraries and utilities which software developers can use to create and manage portable object-oriented distributed applications. Think of it as a object-oriented DCE-like tool set with a run-time environment and system administration utilites. That's still mass market. There is already a mechanism for non-mass-market, i.e. one-off, export of crypto; apply for an export permit. The idea of this initiative is to allow products sold in quantities too great to allow individual export licenses to be sold.
For example, generally available software is offered for sale or licensed to the public without restriction and available through standard commercial channels of distribution; sold as is without further customization; and designed to be installed by the purchaser without additional assistance from the publisher. Computer hardware and computing devices are also defined.
You sell your software as-is; the customer does any customization.
. 15 ``(4) DEFINITIONS.---As used in this 16 subsection---
1 ``(B) the term `as is' means, in the case of 2 software (including software with encryption ca- 3 pabilities), a software program that is not de- 4 signed, developed, or tailored by the software 5 company for specific purchasers, except that 6 such purchasers may supply certain installation 7 parameters needed by the software program to 8 function properly with the purchaser's system 9 and may customize the software program by 10 choosing among options contained in the soft- 11 ware program;
A developer's kit still qualifies as "as-is", mass market software. You're covered. As I see it, the main distinction between "mass market" software and our software is that our software is used to create other software, whereas "mass market" software implies final product "end-user" software. Not a useful distinction from the standpoint of commerce. "Mass-market" means the seller does nothing special for individual customers; no customization, etc. It means the volume is large enough that requiring action on a per-sale basis (as is required for current crypto export licensing) is essentially impossible. Why only "mass market" software? Because the non-mass-market stuff already has the mechanism of applying for individual export licenses; since it's not mass marketed, it's possible to do special things on a per-customer basis. Does the DPSWG want the government to keep export controls in place for the type of product our company is developing? It doesn't. Jason Zions