Re: ITARs effects

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 08:23 PM 12/14/96 -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>At 7:09 pm -0500 12/14/96, Adam Shostack wrote:
>>	My understanding is that they choose not to continue
>>per^H^Hrosecuting Phil for putting the code up for FTP.  Thus, this is
>>a change.  Or did Phil not put the code up for FTP?
>
>Actually, it's my understanding that PRZ didn't do it personally. Someone
>else got the code from Phil and put it on the net. Phil had nothing to do
>with it. Except for writing PGP, of course. :-).

I suppose one of the myriad reasons it would have been difficult/impossible 
to prosecute Zimmermann is that, because the "crime" was approaching the end 
of the statute of limitations, the prospect existed that sometime during the 
trial, we could have had a "Perry Mason"-type ending, with somebody else 
standing up and claiming credit for the (then past the limit) act of 
uploading PGP.  If the standard used for conviction was "beyond a reasonable 
doubt," it would be just about impossible to convict unless the gov't had 
some sort of person-specific evidence, rather than merely evidence that PGP 
got onto the web.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com