From: ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home)
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 23:27:44 -0800 (PST)
To: bgrosman@healey.com.au (Benjamin Grosman)
Subject: Re: Encryption/data-changing in russia
In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19961207002348.00874dcc@healey.com.au>
Message-ID: <199612060721.BAA08398@manifold.algebra.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


Benjamin Grosman wrote:
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> whilst on the subject of PGP in Russia, I encountered something very
> interesting. A friend of mine who is Russian, but lives out here, frequently
> corresponds with friends in Russia via email, and in the course of sending
> emai, they occasionally send an attachment. However, the attachment that
> _all_ his russian friends send, including the ones who use MIME capable
> email clients such as Eudora, always, _always_, uuencode files, and they say
> they can't do MIME. I am wondering if the encryption/data-changing laws in
> Russia are so strict as to disallow MIME encoding even, but still allows UU
> for some reason?

benjamin,

you do have a valid concern, but: 

who cares about these laws if no one enforces them?

russia is such a libertarian country now, all commerce is based on
private enforcement by mobs, the government is so corrupt that all
regulation is sort of auctioned to the highest bribe bidder, and the
government spending is only 13% of GDP because nobody pays taxes. in
economic reality this is actually good because the government is
very small and impotent, as long as it does not spend more than what
it makes.

nobody cares about encryption/shmencryption unless you are a spy.

i regularly send encrypted emails to my russian acquaintainces.

	- Igor.