Taking crypto out of the U.S.

[Timothy C. May]

At 10:11 PM 9/25/96, Igor Chudov @ home wrote:
>> >> Soon I am going to be going overseas to Japan, and I want to take
>> >> my notebook with me so I can keep up with everything, however, I have
>> >> encrypted my hard drive and usually encrypt my mail.  Is this in
>> >> violation of the ITAR to keep everything the same when I go over?
>
>Gentlemen, us customs does not give shit about what you take out
>on your diskettes.
>
>When I went to Russia recenty, I took PGP for DOS, and no one gave
>me any problem.

I initially responded to the first questioner with a simple "No." (Sent
privately.) This answer, because of several points:

- encrypted data, his hypo, is not illegal to export under _any_ circumstances

- the "personal use" exemption

- the Matt Blaze example, where it was obvious U.S. Customs was basically
neither interested in nor set up to process "crypto export" situations

- the basic fact that U.S. Customs _rarely_ does inspections of outgoing stuff

As I've said before, on a trip to Monte Carlo in early '95, I carried out a
bunch of magneto-optical disks, containing more than a gigabyte of stuff,
including a bunch of crypto products, etc.

Needless to say, I boarded my Air France flight without a single glance
from U.S. Customs. They were nowhere in sight, in fact, on the outgoing
side. I could have had suitcases full of cash, briefcases full of stock
certificates, and 100 gigabytes of software.

(A college friend of mine is married to a Brooklyn DA. One of the cases she
described to me involved prosecuting a guy for smuggling U.S. currency out
of the country. She hinted that the only reason he was searched as he left
the country was because of a related case.)

--Tim May

We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay at got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."