From: Dave Emery <die@die.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 14:47:00 -0800 (PST)
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: [LEGAL] Crypto as Contraband?
In-Reply-To: <v03007800b129224968f6@[204.254.20.3]>
Message-ID: <19980311174812.30010@die.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, Mar 08, 1998 at 11:41:41PM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote:

	Qouting worst proposal before congress...
> 
> LEGAL TO USE CRYPTO: "After January 31, 2000, it shall not be
> unlawful to use any encryption product purchased or in use prior to
> such date."
> 
> 

	At the risk of raising yet another stupid and silly issue, does
anybody know how this would apply to crypto (such as PGP) available in
source form ?   Would only binaries produced by compiling the source
before the cutoff date be legal ?  Or would compiling the source under a
new version of the OS or new OS or even new instruction set (ISA-64 on a
Merced for example) merely constitute reasonable use of the existing
source product ? How about mechanical translations of the object to
another environment or instruction set ?   And what level of patches,
bug fixes, or actual changes and improvements to the source would be
legal if it was legal to compile the source and use the resulting binary
after the cutoff ?  


-- 
	Dave Emery N1PRE,  die@die.com  DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. 
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2  5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18