From: Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 02:14:19 +0800
To: whgiii@amaranth.com
Subject: Re: legal EAR work-around/Paper based remailers
In-Reply-To: <199705311334.IAA18924@mailhub.amaranth.com>
Message-ID: <199705311800.TAA00253@server.test.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



William Geiger <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:
> Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes
> > [export via printing out on paper, and scanning via automated for pay
> >  email gateway]
> 
> Why bother with all of this. If you want to export crypto then just do it.
> As long as we keep up with this mickymouse approach to exports trying to
> appease the FEDs who are acting unconstitutionaly on this matter things
> will never change. Put up a web page or a ftp site with the crypto
> binaries and let whomever wishes to download them download them.

Do you have a copy of PGP5.0 on there?  I wouldn't mind looking at
that.

> I have done this and I will continue to do this dispite what the goons in
> DC have to say about it.
> 
> We must all hang together or we will all hang.

If you export it, and make a big deal of it advertising your web page
as widely as you can, and talk to newspapers about how you're
purposefully violating the export law, I'd predict you'd get a visit
from the Feds in a few days.  As long as you're low key, you're just
one of the hundreds getting away with it, and not worth the effort to
stop.

I think the key is to make fun of them, so that they loose
credibility.  They don't like being laughed at.

So Sun Microsystems did a real good job by getting stuff produced in
Russia.  Russia of all places, given the average US persons jingoistic
antagonism towards the "Commies".  Excellent.

So my proposal is aimed at being another stunt.  It might be
news-worthy (ie get reported on enough that it get discussed, and to
make the US government look exceedingly stupid).

And it's perfectly legal, so you can't be stopped.

If PGP Inc wants to mail out the latest version of PGP, they are
welcome to.

I mean come on, next thing, the providor of this service will be
offering web space too, so that US firms can link to their own
binaries which they exported themselves 100% legally.

Now all they need is some reseller agreements, or overseas sales
offices to export worldwide unrestricted, dumb laws or not.

It has been speculated that this change to the regulations might have
been due to Phil Karn's ploy of asking to export the source code disks
of the examples in Applied Crypto.  I think that is a cool
speculation.

Now we all know all the freeware and shareware crypto gets everywhere
anyway.  But no US companies are not exporting high grade crypto
generally, and US companies produce the lions share of application and
OS software.

Adam
-- 
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`