Re: meaningless rumor

[smb@research.att.com]

	 From a high-level source in contact with an *extremely* high
	 level source:

	 Rumor: Moby Crypto was targeted because G. Ward intended to
	 include PGP on distribution disks. The investigation is
	 primarily PGP oriented, and G. Ward is just a bystander who
	 got caught up. PRZ & PGP is the essential target.

	 Notes

	 (1)  phrasing of the subpoenas definitely confirms this -- PGP
	 is mentioned in both.

	 (2) can we find any Usenet postings where G. Ward announced
	 intent to distribute PGP with Moby Crypto to help confirm
	 this?

Ward posted a note that (in essence) asked for help in evading the ITARs.
(Well, I suppose it could have been someone forging a posting...).  He
went so far as to offer to provide mailing labels to someone abroad who
would redistribute Moby Crypto, though from a country where that would
be legal -- but never said how the first copy would get to the trans-
shipment point.  Some reasons were given why this sequence was going to
be technically legal -- but if you were a U.S. attorney investigating
the export of cryptographic software, it's the sort of thing that almost
has to be investigated.  Face it -- if Ward *wanted* to generate a test
case, he couldn't have done a much better job; a private note to the
authorities could have been ``misfiled'', but an announcement to tens
of thousands of readers around the world?  C'mon -- they may or may not
be stupid, and they may or may not be paranoid, but their entire raison
d'etre is to wield power, and Grady just slapped that authority in the
face.  Spitting at your local traffic cop would have been a lot safer.

As for PKP -- *somehow*, it wandered out of the U.S.  Probably, someone
in power decided that that finally needed investigating in detail, to see
if a law was broken.  And Sternlight is right -- if they decide to indict,
they may throw in charges of importing IDEA, though I doubt that they'd
indict just on those grounds; in an era of key escrow, they'd certainly
like a court to rule they had the power to exclude subversive foreign
crypto....


		--Steve Bellovin