Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: PERL/RSA t-shirts for Americans only
From: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:49:16 +0900
Posted-Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 05:49:05 -0400 To: farber () central cis upenn edu (Dave Farber) Cc: interesting-people () eff org (interesting-people mailing list), gnu () toad com Subject: Re: PERL/RSA t-shirts for Americans only Date: Tue, 06 Jun 1995 02:48:55 -0700 From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com> Steve Crocker said:
I doubt that t-shirts containing a couple of lines of PERL code which implement the RSA algorithm are controlled under the ITAR. The ITAR specifcally exempts publications.
The only way to find out what it's legal to publish in the crypto realm is to ask the State Department with a Commodity Jurisdiction request. Trying to understand the plain language of the regulations will lead you into exports (like those of publications) which the State Department has ruled are illegal. This mere fact makes the regulations unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The regulations say that publicly available "information" is exempt from export controls, in an obvious attempt to cut a First Amendment notch in the regulations. But the State Department has decided that crypto software is not "information". And they're trying to convince a judge that software authors of all kinds are not entitled to the protection of the First Amendment. In the Dan Bernstein case, the government explicitly told Dan that he could not publish a technical paper on crypto, nor an English-language description of a crypto algorithm. They also informally told him that if you "published" some crypto material with the "intent" that it be exempt from the export controls, e.g. by giving copies to a library, then the State Department would feel free to come after you anyway, First Amendment notwithstanding. A T-shirt including ANY kind of computer language code that implements crypto is STRONGLY likely to be embargoed (unless it's too easy to break, like ROT13 or weakened RC2). Even the New York Times hedged by taking an "angled" shot of the PERL code so that their photo did not reproduce an entire, working program. See my Crypto Export Web Page at http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/export.html for more details. Steve, it would be easy for you to file a CJ for an RSA-in-PERL T-shirt (except that now it's after the June 1 deadline for buying them). I suggest sending three or four such T-shirts to the Office of Defense Trade Controls along with your CJ request -- I bet they'd be a big hit there. John Gilmore
Current thread:
- Re: PERL/RSA t-shirts for Americans only Dave Farber (Jun 06)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: PERL/RSA t-shirts for Americans only Steve Crocker (Jun 06)