Re: Exporting crypto from Japan

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 9:35 AM -0700 11/16/97, Joichi Ito wrote:
>At 09:02 97/11/14 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> Which explains why that Japanese-produced RSA chip was suddenly withdrawn
>> from the market shortly after Jim Bidzos held it up in fron of Congress as
>> an example of how foolish the U.S. export laws are. The Japanese stooges
>> were ordered by their masters in Washington to conform to U.S. policy.
>>
>> --Tim May
>
>By the way, the chip was not "withdrawn from the market." MITI
>has not approved its export. The imporant point is, a recent regulation
>called the "Gyousei Tetsuzuki Hou" (translates roughly as,
>"ministry administrative law/guidelines") makes it illegal for a ministry

This is, of course, a distinction without a difference. The point is that
NSA was very pissed off that Bidzos would hold up a Japanese chip in front
of Congress, thereby proving that export controls were hardly needed or
even relevant in today's world.

And, almost immediately, the Japanese RSA chip became "unavailable." A
longterm Cypherpunk, who can speak up if he desires to, had a few of these
chips in the U.S. before the NSA ordered Chobetsu/MITI to halt export (and
probably even to halt internal use in products developed for export). He
told me the chips had suddenly become "unavailable," with no apparent
prospects for them _ever_ becoming available. The stooges in Nippon listen
when their masters speak.


>to regulate or restrict an activity without a clear and easy to understand
>process and documentation. MITI's current method of "case-by-case"
>export permission could technically be viewed as a breach of this
>law/regulation. Also, the "Gyousei Tetsuzuki Hou" has time limits
>for ministries to respond to requests. I have informed RSA that they
>could take MITI to court on this one, but as far as I know, they haven't.
>So, yes, Japanese stooges were involved, but companies such as RSA
>haven't taken advantage of their legal position in pushing the export
>of their products from Japan.

RSA the company may have various reasons for not pushing the issue too
hard. For one thing, pissing off the NSA (even more) may cut into business
contracts. For another, designing the Japanese chip into products could be
a dangerous thing, if the supply is uncertain (and winning one court battle
in Japan may not ensure continued supplies). Finally, recall that I
publically described threats by NSA agents to have Bidzos "run over in your
parking lot."

This is the way the Amerikan government works in this era of freedom. It
threatens to kill the chief executives of Amerikan companies who don't play
along with Big Brother's rules. It leans on allies like Japan and Germany
to crack down on crypto products. It ignores import and export laws at will
(as yesterday's "executive order" barring import of more rifles shows), and
it engages in New World Order/OECD/Wassenaar deal cuttings with other
tyrants. Oh, and it holds out the prospect of lucrative contracts to
Netscape, Intel, H-P, TIS, and other such companies if they "build in Big
Brother."


>Maybe we should try to get Mr. Nakatuji to apply for a permit to
>export his Misty stuff. ;-P
>
> - Joi
>
>P.S. We had a cypherpunks-j meeting the other day and no one
>knew who this Nakatuji guy was. I thought he might be some anti-Japanese
>person trying to discredit the Japanese cypherpunks, but another participant
>pointed out that the curses he launched at Tim were very authentic
>Japanese so my theory was unlikely. For the record, he is not one
>of "us". Whatever that means...

Yes, this fits my view that Nakatuji is either an American trolling the
list, or some "dark person" (in the Japanese hacker sense) connecting to
the Net with his "hotmail" account.

That his English is poor is not the real issue. There are plenty of people
with poor English skills. No, the issue is that he sends out short trolls,
first asking "what am Misty?," then offering to sell documentation on
crypto for money sent to him. And he never engages in discussion, broken
English or not.

I was quite serious when I said in a post a few months back that I'd done
some Web and Dejanews searches on his precise name string and had only
found some requests for "male pen pals." This is not a "homophobic" remark,
just a statement of what I found.

(I did the same search several days ago, as Nakatuji once again became news
here, and couldn't find any references at all to his exact name. Maybe the
sites or archives that carried his pen pal requests, if it was he and not
some other with the same name, had flushed this older stuff.)

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."