At 05:53 PM 1/23/96 -0500, jpb@miamisci.org (Joe Block) wrote:

At 9:06 AM 1/23/96, Herb wrote:

...

Careful... what would YOU have done, with your customers demanding stronger crypto today and you unable to legally give it to them?

Umm - contract the crypto overseas somewhere it would be legal to export it from? Then import the code to the USA, with a press release to WSJ & NYT stating that American programmers were being put out of work by ITAR.

The problem is whether you can separate the functionality of what you're exporting sufficiently from what you're contracting out that the exported material isn't a "component of a cryptosystem"; it's tough to do a good bones version of code if you're concerned about satisfying both the letter and spirit of a law to avoid hassles with the government. On the other hand, if you're as big as IBM or even MIT, sometimes you can do it.... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # # "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching # the government, not the other way around....