CDR: Re: RC4 source as a literate program

[Steven Furlong]

David Honig wrote:
> 
> At 09:14 AM 9/2/00 -0400, Steven Furlong wrote:
> ><<begin quoted material>>
> >As the President has made clear, encryption software is
> >regulated because it has the technical capacity to encrypt data and
> >by that jeopardize American security interests, not because of its
> >expressive content. Exec. Order No. 13026, 1996 WL 666563.
> 
> Were this true, carrying a copy of _Applied Crypto_ (not including
> source) out of the country would be illegal.  It is not.  The law
> is an ass.

Yah, Judge Gwin appears pretty clueless here.

And don't forget how the PGP source code was exported: printed using
a special font, then carried to Europe, then scanned and OCR'd. An
awful lot of wasted effort, for no gain in the US's national security.

By the way, you got your aphorism wrong. It's "The law is a ass"; Mr.
Bumble in Charles Dickins' _Oliver Twist_. Mr. Bumble was pretty much
"a" ass himself, so I'm not sure that quoting him conveys quite the
message that is usually intended.

-- 
Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere     Have GNU, will travel
   518-374-4720     sfurlong at acmenet.net