Jim Bell:

Packrat, I agree with the (likely) implications of your (tongue-in-cheek?) commentary. The fact that "nothing happened to Zimmermann" is scant hope to us. If ITAR is causing cryptosystems to not be built, merely due to FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) then it is actively harming us.

no, your own fear is harming you. no law requires that you be in fear of it (some may try, but that is not a law that can be written). that is the point of the law, that is the intent of it. when you choose to be in fear of it, the bureacrats win. no one is forcing you to be in fear of it. that is YOUR CHOICE. even if you are thrown in prison for it, or put in front of a firing squad for it, you are still not required to fear the law. the antidote to fear of a law is not necessarily to get rid of the law. it is to STOP FEARING THE LAW. the avoidance of fear of the law will lead to the ridding of it. don't you see that it is your FEAR OF THE LAW, not necessarily the LAW ITSELF, that is the problem? the entire ITAR could be revoked, but fraidy-cat cpunks could still have endless theories about what the NSA Bogeyman would do to you if you actually tried to write some crypto and export it. === I had a feeling someone would pretty soon say, "well, why don't YOU violate the ITAR and we'll see what happens". this is the eternal cry and whine of the sheep. "if I shouldn't fear something, why don't you do it first, and then I'll see what happens to you. if something happens to you, then I am justified in my fear". a lie-- it's just more sheep-fear. the sheep may continue to fear the law even if so-and-so tries such-and-such and nothing happens. THAT IS IN FACT WHAT HAPPENED WITH ZIMMERMANN. hence my doing the same thing would be POINTLESS. the sheep will endlessly fear, no number of counterexamples will persuade them not to fear, because the fear is not based on *reality*, but on *hypothetical* situations. even if nothing happens, as it did with Zimmermann, then the sheep will continue to fear because of their *imagination*. indeed, that is precisely what continues on this list. cpunks are always whining about "sheeple" in this country who have no guts and hence no glory, but imho cpunks are the biggest batch of sheep on the planet, all the way up to the head sheep TCM, who writes long explanations of why the police state is inevitable and nothing we can do will stop it, and EH, who hides/shouts behind pseudonym(s) on the list as an excuse for moderation & leadership.