Re: NYT on NTT/RSA Chips

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 04:45 AM 6/5/96 -0400, Peter D. Junger wrote:
  
>The software for both DES and RSA are publically available so it would
>not have solved any previously unsolved problem for someone to have
>mailed the code--or the algorithms--to NTT.


Here's something to think about:  At this point, the USG apparently doesn't attempt to restrict the IMPORTATION of crypto software and hardware.  Yet, it calls it "munitions" and the government certainly claims the authority under certain circumstances to restrict munitions imports:  For example, automatic rifles and Chinese "assault weapons" (sic).

Until this new NTT/RSA chip, there has not been much that the USG wanted to keep out that it could keep out.  Software is easily copied, so that is futile.  Hardware is more practical to restrict, but until substantial quantities are imported it doesn't constitute much of a threat.  Wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that the advent of this NTT chip set might induce the government to start restricting crypto hardware import, under some odd new interpretation of ITAR rules?

If so, I think NTT should immediately import into the US the database for the design and testing of this chip, on the offchance that the USG gets uppity and decides to ban its import.  At that point, they merely start manufacture domestically, supplying the domestic market.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com