export restictions and investments
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe? Since Sun bought the Russian Elvis+ company it seems to be Ok, just wanted to check if there are any other opinions. Does anyone know of any other non-US companies that have received US investments, or venture capital or whatever? Jyri Kaljundi jk@stallion.ee AS Stallion Ltd http://www.stallion.ee/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <Pine.GSO.3.95.971118144118.21511I-100000@nebula>, on 11/18/97 at 02:44 PM, Jyri Kaljundi <jk@stallion.ee> said:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
Since Sun bought the Russian Elvis+ company it seems to be Ok, just wanted to check if there are any other opinions. Does anyone know of any other non-US companies that have received US investments, or venture capital or whatever?
AFAIK there is no restrictions on US citizens investing in foreign companies. The only restrictions that I know of deal with the exchange of crypto technical information (IE a US company can not buy into a foreign company and then ship their crypto through them.) All crypto sales done by the foreign company must be developed independently of the US company. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNHGc/o9Co1n+aLhhAQH12QP9HUDOlg0Mx8L3NMq1Pyjc0PTeBHWpC1pJ T63in6eRR2tfCiR++gixpbs/0zgajs1S/+9PUEKKoHT8LiAOIktn82rouHehgH8u qI0rqCIDQ59FACb7nNgrgYkultpgcyA0sUtaxV8zJWIYpBFefAOU9EcT2yXTvgsH N3fgHDp3oB4= =Jo0r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 5:44 AM -0700 11/18/97, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
Until recently it was legal for U.S. folks to invest at they saw fit, modulo that they could not invest in Cuba, Yemen, N. Korea, Eastasia, Oceania, and other such Enemies of the People. And a U.S. company could not export expertise to a foreign site to avoid the export laws (ITARS, now EARs). Thus, RSA could not send Rivest and others to Estonia to develop s/w to bypass U.S. export laws. (In a sense, Rivest is non-exportable.) All this may be changing, for the worse. The Anti-Terrorism Act of 1995 made _financial_ support of some list of organizations illegal. This list was finally published, and includes a few dozen "terrorist" organizations. This has been interpreted by many to mean that charitable donations to one of the listed groups, the Irish Republican Army, for example, could be a crime. Will some of these offshore crypto and software companies be placed on this list? Will this make investment in these companies a crime under the Anti-Terrorism Act? I believe this will happen. Maybe not next year, but within five years. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
Tim May writes:
At 5:44 AM -0700 11/18/97, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
And a U.S. company could not export expertise to a foreign site to avoid the export laws (ITARS, now EARs). Thus, RSA could not send Rivest and others to Estonia to develop s/w to bypass U.S. export laws. (In a sense, Rivest is non-exportable.)
There are also special rules about "weapons of mass destruction" in the Wassenaar Arrangement rules, and also I think in other US regulations. These make interesting reading -- any form of aid to someone developing nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, or biological weapons is forbidden. That aid can be giving them money, expertise, or even technical documentation. Has anyone at Sun ever sent a Java manual to a pharmaceutical company outside the US? Hmmm. Of course crypto is not currently classed as a weapon of mass destruction, but if there was an electronic terrorist attack on the entire US telephone system it could easily make people think about changing that. And in the meantime the list of chemicals mentioned above is sufficiently broad that almost anyone could be technically guilty of something. (not normally very paranoid) Greg. Greg Rose INTERNET: ggr@qualcomm.com QUALCOMM Australia VOICE: +61-2-9743 4646 FAX: +61-2-9736 3262 6 Kingston Avenue http://people.qualcomm.com/ggr/ Mortlake NSW 2137 B5 DF 66 95 89 68 1F C8 EF 29 FA 27 F2 2A 94 8F
Greg Rose wrote:
Of course crypto is not currently classed as a weapon of mass destruction
Hmmm ... the EEC/UK regs on WMD have specific things to say about crypto, and definitely restrict crypto export (at least in some circumstances - naturally, the whole thing is horrifically complex and no-one is about to explain it). Cheers, Ben. -- Ben Laurie |Phone: +44 (181) 735 0686|Apache Group member Freelance Consultant |Fax: +44 (181) 735 0689|http://www.apache.org and Technical Director|Email: ben@algroup.co.uk |Apache-SSL author A.L. Digital Ltd, |http://www.algroup.co.uk/Apache-SSL London, England. |"Apache: TDG" http://www.ora.com/catalog/apache
On Tue, 18 Nov 1997, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto companies?
They don't.
Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in Europe?
It is legal. For now. -- Lucky Green <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> PGP v5 encrypted email preferred. "Tonga? Where the hell is Tonga? They have Cypherpunks there?"
participants (6)
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Ben Laurie -
Greg Rose -
Jyri Kaljundi -
Lucky Green -
Tim May -
William H. Geiger III