jhenry@randvax.UUCP (Jim Henry) (12/12/85)
In article <325@l5.uucp> gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >Nobody since then has had the guts to even *ask* the govt for >the license. Thanks for setting a precedent guys ... and thank *you* >Fred, for suggesting that easy code which implements a publicly-available >standard should be kept inside the US. For what it's worth, I put together a request for an export license for my previous employer but we weren't even given the courtesy of a reply. The problem is that ANY cryptographic mechanism must be licensed for export, not just DES implementations or whatever. I don't know if rot13 would upset the big boys or not. Actually the list of what requires such licenses is very long and very broad and will make you laugh, cry, or both. I guess no one felt up to trying to define explicitly what shouldn't be exported in the interests of National Security and took the cop-out of saying it has to be reviewed on a case by case basis. I have directed follow-up to net.crypt which seems the right forum if anyone wants to wail about government meddling in cryptography. Be forewarned, I would expect that most of the audience in net.crypt is pretty sick of this subject. DISCLAIMER: These are my own personal views and neither my present nor previous employers agree with me often enough to matter.