1993-05-03 - Import OK by the look of this…

Header Data

From: Sy Verpunc <svp@gtoal.com>
To: sci-crypt@demon.co.uk
Message Hash: 3b78c43b5d75a83943f32b6af068941bc5cf7b7ec18767090348f528050df79e
Message ID: <9305021304.AA06890@pizzabox.demon.co.uk>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1993-05-03 13:45:43 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 3 May 93 06:45:43 PDT

Raw message

From: Sy Verpunc <svp@gtoal.com>
Date: Mon, 3 May 93 06:45:43 PDT
To: sci-crypt@demon.co.uk
Subject: Import OK by the look of this...
Message-ID: <9305021304.AA06890@pizzabox.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


: which otherwise would have been illegal. FBI special agent was standing by to
: make sure no other laws were broken, as could have happened in technology
: demonstration. Event was practical demonstration of what Subcommittee Chmn.
: Markey (D-Mass.) called "the 'sinister side' to cyberspace."
...
:    Gage said export laws prohibit selling abroad of particular encryption
: computer programs. Yet he showed panel text of computer program pulled off
: Internet, from Finland, of prohibited source code for Data Encryption Standard
: (DES) used by U.S. govt. In that case, law wasn't broken because program was
: imported, not exported. Adding comma to code would route program to Moscow, Gage
: said, so he didn't add it because there was no immunity. Also set up in room was
: satellite hookup to Moscow using small earth station made by KGB, which was in
: contact with Russian satellite.

My inference from this is that if they went to the bother of checking to
make sure they knew about the laws and explicitly arranged immunity for
the scanner demonstration, we can take it as read that *import* of crypto
wares is *not* illegal, as some have tried to suggest.

Graham
PS I'm xposting this to sci.crypt





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