crypto restrictions

[Greg Broiles]

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At 05:20 AM 2/14/97 -0800, anand abhyankar wrote:
>1) is it illegal to develop an encryption tool (s/w) in the US which
>uses > 40 bit size session keys and then export that s/w outside of the
>US.

Yes, that's illegal, unless you get permission for the export. Getting
permission requires jumping through many hoops, and is far from a sure thing.
(It's easier to count on not getting permission. You almost certainly won't
get permission if you want to use >40 bits and you're not going to force your
customers to share their keys with the government.) 

Consequently, the US is a bad place to write crypto software if you want to
make it available worldwide. 

>2) is it illegal to encrypt some data inside the us with a key > 40 bit
>in size and then send that data outside the US.

Data which may be exported as plaintext may be exported as ciphertext. Data
which may not be exported as plaintext may not be exported as ciphertext. But
in the latter case, it's harder to catch you. :) 


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--
Greg Broiles                | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell:
gbroiles at netbox.com         | 
http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto.
                            |