Interesting People mailing list archives
From Steve Crocker Re: GOVERNMENT PROBES "PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY" EXPORT
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 05:10:57 -0400
Posted-Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 23:31:52 -0400 To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber) Cc: interesting-people () eff org (interesting-people mailing list) Subject: Re: GOVERNMENT PROBES "PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY" EXPORT Date: Thu, 28 Apr 94 23:30:13 -0400 From: Stephen D Crocker <crocker () tis com> "At the heart ... is whether ... Zimmerman was responsible for placing the program on the Internet, where is was picked up..." There's an important thread in this story that bears close watching. The wording of this story suggests that if Zimmerman did, in fact, place PGP on the Internet, then he necessarily violated the export regulations. How can this be? Is the Internet inextricably outside the country? If the Government is going to press this matter, one of the issues that has to be cleared up is what constitutes an act of export. If simply placing something on an anonymous FTP server constitutes "export," then life will become pretty complicated. As Americans, we're used to wandering pretty freely inside our borders. Very few of us encounter our borders on a daily basis. If the Internet is deemed to be our border, then the U.S. becomes balkanized. Every inter-company communication is a cross-border transaction. Seems ludicrous, right? Then the only other conclusion I can see is that posting something on a server in the U.S. cannot, by itself, constitute an export act. Steve
From: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber) To: interesting-people () eff org (interesting-people mailing list) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 21:32:30 -0400 Subject: GOVERNMENT PROBES "PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY" EXPORT GOVERNMENT PROBES "PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY" EXPORT The creator of the "Pretty Good Privacy" encryption program is being investigated by the FBI, and a federal grand jury is examining whether he broke laws against exporting encryption codes. At the heart of the issue is whether Philip Zimmermann was responsible for placing the program on the Internet, where it was picked up and used by networkers in other countries. Zimmermann has claimed he did not personally post any messages containing the program. (Wall Street Journal 4/28/94 A1)
Current thread:
- From Steve Crocker Re: GOVERNMENT PROBES "PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY" EXPORT David Farber (Apr 29)