that ...... but if those ping packets contained little pieces of something like PGP ...... would the host being pinged be breaking the law? Would
[zap!]
the destination are violating the law. Since it is impossible to monitor the contents of every packet being transmitted over a network, I seriously doubt that any intermediate host would be considered to be in violation of ITAR.
On an ecouraging note, I recall a Packet Radio case where someone posted what amounted to an advertisement for a 1-900 service. Commercial advertisements being prohibited on all Ham Radio, the FCC moved to censure ALL of the dozen-or-so packet stations which had automatically forwarded the offending message. Great alarm was raised in the packet community, and I believe it was the ARRL which enlightened the FCC that enforcement in such a manner would destroy packet radio by requiring each message to be manually inspected prior to retransmission - an obvious impracticality. (Even though the letter of the law may have permitted such a strict enforcement by the FCC.) In the end, only the ORIGINATOR of the message was "punished." -Doug