Re: Wearing RSA shirt to school

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

Grumpiness warning: I have held my tongue the past few months as all of
these "this t-shirt has been declared a munition!!!" messages went out, but
I can hold my tongue no longer.


At 4:43 AM 9/4/95, Futplex wrote:
>I wrote:
>> With respect to possession within the U.S., there aren't any
>> laws stopping you from waving strong cryptography around wherever you like
>> (at least, not yet).
>
>----
>...and in private email, Jim Ray pointed out that showing the shirt to a
>foreign national might technically violate ITAR...

Nope, no more so than letting a foreign national read Schneier's book is a
violation of the ITAR. If you dispute this, ask whether Schneier's book is
banned from export (the book, not the optional diskette). It isn't. Nor are
other cryptography _books_ banned from export.

I'm not minimizing the issue of export of machine-readable code, as in
diskettes. But to claim that a blurry, printed on cotton "barcode" is even
remotely in the same class as exporting a workable set of cryptographic
system routines, or that letting a furriner merely "gaze upon" this blurry
barcode, is a violation of the ITARs is laughable.


>Yeah, I suppose I overstated it a bit. It appears that if the ITAR do cover
>the shirt (unclear at present, AFAIK -- any news on the CJR, Raph ?), then
>flashing it at a furriner could constitute a violation. Thanks for the
>correction.

No. No more so than "flashing" a copy of a crypto book would constitute a
violation.

>
>The gist of my previous message remains: No local or state authority in the
>U.S. (of which I'm aware) classifies strong cryptography as a munition,
>weapon, etc. I haven't heard of any restrictions on transporting crypto
>across state lines, either. Unless the Feds start cracking down on high
>schools, or the Perl-RSA shirt somehow violates some school dress code, (gang
>colors ? ;)  the original questioner need not fret about his son wearing the
>shirt to school.

It was this series of posts about whether wearing the "munitions t-shirt"
near schools was a crime or not that made me think the silly season had
arrived. If the t-shirt is a munition, and books are munitions, then
libraries must be real "ammunition dumps," ready to explode at any minute.
News at 11.

Let's get real.

--Tim May

---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."