Re: US law on re-exporting crypto software?

["James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>]

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At 06:49 PM 2/19/98 -0500, Anonymous wrote:
> An article in the current issue of the German journal 
> `Datenschutz und Datensicherheit' claims that exporting 
> crypto software from anywhere outside the US to a third 
> country violates US law if the software contains (only 
> marginal amounts of) US-developed code, such as a C  
> standard library, and that anyone distributing crypto 
> software that has been compiled with an American compiler 
> had better not visit the United States.  Is that true?

No one knows what the laws on cryptography in the US are, 
least of all the courts or the lawyers.

There is a law against exporting armaments, or indeed doing 
diddly squat with armaments, and the bureaucrats have decreed 
crypto an armament, however they have displayed profound 
reluctance to take this issue to court, so the implications 
of such a law, and such a definition remain entirely unknown.

However since no one has yet been actually indicted, it is 
unlikely that you will be the first.  

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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     42je0WMVidgZLmeFqZcxiIvUBWPKVWWUER4SS70Ko
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We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of 
the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, 
not from the arbitrary power of the state.

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/