Re: PGP availiable on magazine cover

[Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>]

>This is a good thing.  By being published in that fashion, PGP thus meets
>the requirements under ITAR to be classified public domain, and can thus
>now be legally exported from the US.

Uh, my experience so far with the book "Applied Cryptography" shows
that the government discriminates on the basis of recording medium --
inked Roman characters on paper are okay, but magnetic ASCII bytes on
mylar aren't, even if the information is exactly the same.

And yes, I've explained to them in great detail, in a formal
administrative appeal, why this distinction is silly, stupid, absurd
and most likely unconstitutional.

Stay tuned. The latest word is that a response to my appeal (filed in
early June and still pending despite a rule that calls for a 30-day
response) is supposed to arrive in mid-September. For background, see
the files ftp:/ftp.cygnus.com/pub/export/applied*.

Phil