mwarren@rws1.ma30.bull.com (Mark Warren) (03/21/91)
My current belief is that there is no longer any restriction, from the US government, concerning shipping the DES algorithm overseas. Can anyone provide an *AUTHORITIVE* confirmation on this? It used to be that international Unix distributions had crypt and setkey() removed. -- == Mark Warren Bull HN Information Systems Inc. == == (508) 294-3171 (FAX 294-3020) 300 Concord Road MS852A == == Mark.Warren@bull.com Billerica, MA 01821 ==
jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (03/22/91)
In article <mwarren.669570304@rws1>, mwarren@rws1.ma30.bull.com (Mark Warren) writes: |> My current belief is that there is no longer any restriction, from the US |> government, concerning shipping the DES algorithm overseas. Can anyone |> provide an *AUTHORITIVE* confirmation on this? As far as I know, there are still restrictions. Some versions of Unix manage to ship overseas with crypt() (and more recently with Kerberos, e.g. in Ultrix 4.0), because of the following: 1. The code is being used for *authentication*, rather than for *encryption*. I believe the export restrictions draw a distinction. 2. The vendors get specific permission from the government to export the code in the specific form it takes in their products. They have enough money and enough lawyers to do this. :-) -- Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8085 Home: 617-782-0710
mbrown@testsys.austin.ibm.com (Mark Brown) (03/22/91)
mwarren@rws1.ma30.bull.com (Mark Warren) writes: |My current belief is that there is no longer any restriction, from the US |government, concerning shipping the DES algorithm overseas. Can anyone |provide an *AUTHORITIVE* confirmation on this? | |It used to be that international Unix distributions had crypt and setkey() |removed. It is *STILL* U.S. law that DES function cannot be shipped out of the United States without explicit Commerce Department approval. I know it's silly, but it is the Law. DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer, but I get advised by them frequently. -- Mark Brown IBM PSP Austin, TX. (512) 823-3741 VNET: MBROWN@AUSVMQ MAIL: mbrown@testsys.austin.ibm.com OR uunet!testsys.austin.ibm.com!mbrown The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from! DISCLAIMER: Any personal opinions stated here are just that.