Re: Encryption Regulations

Eliezer Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Wed, 01 Jan 1997 21:17:10 -0600


> Is it really as easy as I think it is to walk right through the United States'
> encryption ban? Or am I missing something?

Nothing whatsoever. The ban is a joke. "Applied Cryptography", with
(paper!) source code, has been freely exported to other countries. If
you export a floppy disk *with exactly the same source code* on it, you
go to prison. Some guy is selling T-shirts with machine-readable RSA
code on them (those little bars that supermarket checkers scan with
laser pistols, I think). To get this T-shirt, you must present a
notarized document stating you are a U.S. citizen and you will guard the
T-shirt with your life, or something like that. These T-shirts, you
see, are CONTROLLED MUNITIONS.

I am not making this up.

-- 
         sentience@pobox.com      Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
          http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/singularity.html
           http://tezcat.com/~eliezer/algernon.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
everything I think I know.