From: "Ian Farquhar" <ianf@sydney.sgi.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 94 15:56:29 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Articles on RC5 and GOST in January 95 Dr Dobbs Journal
In-Reply-To: <m0rGxeO-0002NMC@chinet.chinet.com>
Message-ID: <9412121048.ZM10865@wiley.sydney.sgi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Dec 11,  5:25pm, Bruce Schneier wrote:
> Remember, you can export cryptographic source code in paper form.

Now there's an interesting thought...

Many of you will remember the heady days of the early 1980's, when it was
customary for PC magazines to include substantial amounts of code in their
pages (often 25% or so of the magazine).  This all had to be typed in by
hand, and especially in the case of BASIC programs (there was only BASIC
in those days really, it was the lowest common demoninator) containing
machine code, they would also almost always have checksums to make sure
that what was typed in was correct.

This was never a lot of fun.  I did it a few times myself.  That cured me for
life from repeating the exercise.

Around the mid 1980's a rather interesting device appeared.  It was essentially
an automated scanner for high-density barcodes.  You photocopied the magazine
page containing these 25 cm (or whatever) barcode strips, which you fed into
the reader.  It scanned the contents of the barcode, and voila, a working
program.  At least in theory.  The downfall of this system is that the reader
cost several hundred dollars, and almost nobody could afford them.  It never
quite caught on.

Even so, I really wonder if the export of cryptography ON PAPER but in a
machine-readable form would be in violation of ITAR?  If anyone has one of
these old scanner, it might very well be worth trying.

							Ian.