Re: Laws Outside the U.S.

[danisch@ira.uka.de (Hadmut Danisch)]

Germany:

There is no restriction of import or use of cryptography ( _yet_ ). 

There are some restrictions about export and transmission of encrypted data:

- Encryption soft/hardware can not be exported to communist countries
  (COCOM) without problems. I don't know exactly, whether it is
  forbidden, must be licensed, or must be registered in any way.

- There are two kinds of amateur radio, the CB (citizen band) and the
  licensed amateur radio, which requires a personal license. On this
  licensed radio it is not allowed to send encrypted messages, but as
  far as I know nobody cares and nobody checks. The sense was to make
  you use the telephone and pay.

- There was a restriction about the telephone net. You are not allowed
  to transmit anything but voice. I don't know what happened with that
  restriction since everyone uses fax and modem legally. 



At the moment they have a lot of problems with such laws. They have to
decide whether they are valid or not, because most european countries
have joined the European Community. The EC forces their countries to
equalize their laws in the sense of "what you can do in one country,
you can do everywhere".

Sometimes this is very helpfull (e.g. use of modems. Most of them
where illegal in Germany, meanwhile nearly all of them have a
license), sometimes they have silly ideas (e.g. laws about ingredients
of noodles or beer). 

If France forbids the import of crypto software, but allows to sell it
inside of France, then I can sue France, because the french programmer
can sell his programs in France and I can't.

I'm sure we will get a special crypto law within the next years.


Hadmut