[net.sources.d] Export controls on public domain information.

george@mnetor.UUCP (George Hart) (10/23/86)

In article <470@sask.UUCP> brecht@sask.UUCP writes:
>The restrictions are ludicrous.  You can get the DES encryption document
>here in Canada -- I have it as an appendix in a computer science textbook of
>mine.  If that is sufficient to write a DES encryptor, then any export
>controls on programs containing such an encryptor are futile.
>
>The restriction on exporting crypt is even more laughable.  We've used it in
>Canada for years; the machine that I'm writing on has it.
>
>DES and crypt are *already* out of American hands.  Export restrictions on
>those particular algorithms seem to be pointless hassling of American
>firms by the State Department.

Note that when it comes up for recertification, (around '88 or so),
DES will *not* be recertified by the NBS as the US Gov't standard 
encryption algorithm.  The article in which I read this did not specify
what would replace it.

-- 


Regards,

George Hart, Computer X Canada Ltd.
UUCP: utzoo
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