Re: export restictions and investments

[Greg Rose <ggr@qualcomm.com>]

Tim May writes:
>At 5:44 AM -0700 11/18/97, Jyri Kaljundi wrote:
>>How do the US export restrictions affect investments into non-US crypto
>>companies? Is it legal for US private persons or companies to invest money
>>into companies developing strong crypto applications for example in
>>Europe?
>
>And a U.S. company could not export expertise to a foreign site to avoid
>the export laws (ITARS, now EARs). Thus, RSA could not send Rivest and
>others to Estonia to develop s/w to bypass U.S. export laws. (In a sense,
>Rivest is non-exportable.)
 
There are also special rules about "weapons of
mass destruction" in the Wassenaar Arrangement
rules, and also I think in other US regulations.

These make interesting reading -- any form of aid
to someone developing nuclear weapons, chemical
weapons, or biological weapons is forbidden. That
aid can be giving them money, expertise, or even
technical documentation. Has anyone at Sun ever
sent a Java manual to a pharmaceutical company
outside the US? Hmmm.

Of course crypto is not currently classed as a
weapon of mass destruction, but if there was an
electronic terrorist attack on the entire US
telephone system it could easily make people
think about changing that. And in the meantime the
list of chemicals mentioned above is sufficiently
broad that almost anyone could be technically
guilty of something.

(not normally very paranoid)
Greg.

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