On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Bob De Witt wrote:

Doesn't the act of taking it across the border, in the laptop, constitute an act of export??

well, yes, of course. that was taken for granted in my comments. likewise, if you go to a tattoo parlor and get the infamous 4 line crypto-sig tattooed on your ass, then you are classified as a munition, and you cannot leave the US. the only relevant question here regards the odds that a US Customs officer is going to want you to drop your drawers and bend over... ;-) ken

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I'm in El Paso Texas... so close to the border I can see Old Mex outside my window as I write this.. I'm over there nearly every day for lunch ( I actually walk there from my house it's so close) If I write a crypto program on my laptop over there and ftp it to a web page I have on a server outside the US will I have avoided the foolish export regs?? Does anyone know of someone trying this before??

My guess is this: if it has the name of a US citizen in the copyright notice, it will be assumed to have been made in the US. if the morons even go after you. you still may have a plausable excuse if ever taken to court. after all, you "exported" youself, which is a perfectly legal thing to take out of the country, and "yourself" accidentally spewed a copy of something that couldn't cross the border. I don't think anybody has tried this and been challenged. then again, a lot of us don't have the opportunity. It's easier to ask forgivness than permission... Another easier excuse would be to publish it freely in hardcopy form, and just "happen" to have somebody end up "typing" in your source code abroad, making a legit international copy... -Anon2

i would think that the big question here, legally, is whether or not you would be ustilizing a US ISP and/or cellular provider to make the upload of the crypto program to the foreign server via ftp. as long as all the packets stay outside of US borders, in other words, as long as you don't use a US ISP and cellular provider, then i don't see how you would be violating any laws in this case.

Regards,

TATTOOMAN

http://152.7.11.38/~tattooman/

Bob De Witt, rdew@el.nec.com The views expressed herein are my own, and are not attributable to any other source, be it employer, friend or foe.

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