From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 95 06:07:41 PDT
To: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Munitions shirt (again)
Message-ID: <m0svlNY-0004JWC@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Timothy C. May writes:

: At 3:49 PM 9/20/95, Ian Goldberg wrote:
: >So, Dave and I got free munitions shirts (they're different, though;
: >the font is smaller and they have a bunch of X'd out Constitutional
: >Amendments on the back; I think they ere designed by Joel Furr) for
: >our bug find.
: >
: >So I'm wearing it today.  The thing is, I live in International House,
: >a residence that has 50% non-Americans.
: >
: >So, any consensus as to whether it's actually illegal to do so?  I
: >remember some disagreement a few weeks ago that AFAIK wasn't resolved.
: 
: The _consensus_ here seems to be: "This t-shirt is illegal to wear in front
: of non-Americans," judging by the comments here.

Assuming that the International Traffic in Arms Regulations are the
law (rather than the unconstitutional silliness that they actually
are), this consensus is correct.  The ITAR forbid the ``disclosure''
of cryptographic ``software''--very broadly defined--to ``foreign''
persons ``within or without the United States.''  It says nothing
about the medium of the disclosure: whether it is a T-shirt or
computer screen.
 
: The _reality_ is quite different, I think, and the "this shirt is illegal"
: hype is, in my opinion, just that, hyperbole. Even hyperbull, too.
: 
: Books and written articles containing crypto algorithms are _not_ illegal
: for "furriners" to look at. The t-shirt contains at most a fuzzy printing
: of an algorithm that has been widely printed in various books and in
: articles in mailing lists like ours.
 
The fact that the government does not dare to try to enforce the ITAR
against those who publish cryptographic software without a license (and
the fact that the Office of Defense Trade Controls has waived its jurisdiction
to require a license in one case for a book where it retained
jurisdiction for a CDrom with the same information) does not mean that
it is not a violation of the ITAR to publicly wear a T-shirt with
cryptographic software on it; although it does strongly suggest that
no one will be prosecuted for such violations.

And that is just as well, since the posting on an anonymous FTP server
of the C program that cracks the seed for the Netscape security routines
is also a technical violation of the ITAR, as even Mr. May will
perhaps concede.  The fact that warning the world of this security
breach is a violation of the ITAR simply shows how silly--and how
dangerous--is the ITAR's licensing scheme for the publication
of cryptographic software.

: (I agree that there are some unresolved issues with ostensibly
: machine-readable forms. The t-shirt is not machine-readable by any
: plausible interpretation of machine-readable.)

There is nothing in the ITAR that refers to ``machine-readable'' so
there is no need to interpret that term.  
 
- --
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu