US crypto export rules
Apparently, in the US you have to declare a national state of emergency in order to continue on with various export restrictions on cryptography (Bruce Schneier informs us). I don't really care, to be honest. I'm just glad to be living in the great United Kingdom, an enlightened nation where the government doesn't have any draconian cryptography laws.
posted by Matt Crypto at 4:30 pm
4 Comments:
The US export law considers cryptography as weapons. If they shoot a suspect, does he return fire with his PGP key?
Given the role that cryptography has played in wars from the Civil War on, I think it is legitimate to consider it a weapon.
-Mike
I think I still have an (incredibly nerdy) T-shirt from ThinkGeek with a Perl implementation of RSA on the back. At the time, I believe the T-shirt was classed as munitions by the US export regulations.
I never understood the restrictions on software, particularly software you could download easily enough from anywhere in the world.
Amen!
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