-- At 06:49 PM 2/19/98 -0500, Anonymous wrote:

An article in the current issue of the German journal `Datenschutz und Datensicherheit' claims that exporting crypto software from anywhere outside the US to a third country violates US law if the software contains (only marginal amounts of) US-developed code, such as a C standard library, and that anyone distributing crypto software that has been compiled with an American compiler had better not visit the United States. Is that true?

No one knows what the laws on cryptography in the US are, least of all the courts or the lawyers. There is a law against exporting armaments, or indeed doing diddly squat with armaments, and the bureaucrats have decreed crypto an armament, however they have displayed profound reluctance to take this issue to court, so the implications of such a law, and such a definition remain entirely unknown. However since no one has yet been actually indicted, it is unlikely that you will be the first. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG MukYGG/TcTpm9PDncEpXfT4BfC8t7mVXt7WWsJtm 42je0WMVidgZLmeFqZcxiIvUBWPKVWWUER4SS70Ko --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/