Re: Munitions shirt (again)

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

At 3:49 PM 9/20/95, Ian Goldberg wrote:
>So, Dave and I got free munitions shirts (they're different, though;
>the font is smaller and they have a bunch of X'd out Constitutional
>Amendments on the back; I think they ere designed by Joel Furr) for
>our bug find.
>
>So I'm wearing it today.  The thing is, I live in International House,
>a residence that has 50% non-Americans.
>
>So, any consensus as to whether it's actually illegal to do so?  I
>remember some disagreement a few weeks ago that AFAIK wasn't resolved.

The _consensus_ here seems to be: "This t-shirt is illegal to wear in front
of non-Americans," judging by the comments here.

The _reality_ is quite different, I think, and the "this shirt is illegal"
hype is, in my opinion, just that, hyperbole. Even hyperbull, too.

Books and written articles containing crypto algorithms are _not_ illegal
for "furriners" to look at. The t-shirt contains at most a fuzzy printing
of an algorithm that has been widely printed in various books and in
articles in mailing lists like ours.

(I agree that there are some unresolved issues with ostensibly
machine-readable forms. The t-shirt is not machine-readable by any
plausible interpretation of machine-readable.)


>As far as I can tell, it's _technically_ illegal, but any LEO would be
>out of his mind to try to enforce it (it would have to be a Fed, too,
>wouldn't it?  Or can regular city cops get you for violating export
>restrictions?).

Ian did great work on the latest Netscape break, but this is just plain crazy.

--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.
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