AES

[Ross Anderson]

Nigel:

> Many congratulations on being one of the chosen ones.  You make a good
> point re licences but I would have thought you would still have been
> exempted on the "research" exclusion.

Nice to see the DTI shifting its position slightly on this. As the
department responsible for science and technology research, you would
be in a difficult position if you stuck to last year's hard line.

It would be even nicer if we could get a formal ruling on the
universities' position, or indeed an Open General Export Licence.
However the normal civil service reflex will be to keep things as
vague as possible so as to maximise Sir Humphrey's ability to reward
and punish.

I recall that in about 1994, a chap at a northern university was about
to publish an attack on the GSM algorithm A5. The DTI phoned up his
Vice Chancellor and said `you'd better keep this guy under control,
you get 4 million a year in research funding from us'. Although
punishing lecturer X by withdrawing his grant in retaliation for the
actions of lecturer Y would have been completely illegal, the paper
was pulled. (To no avail - the attack was rediscovered by Jovan Golic
and published at Eurocrypt 97.)

So far, similar attempts to interfere with our research at Cambridge
have met with a very robust response. However I am concerned at the
possible reaction of a future non-technological Vice Chancellor, on
getting a phone call telling him that one of his teaching officers was
possibly committing an offence by exporting weapons without a licence.

> By the way it is NOT Uk who are pushing the intangible stuff throught
> the EU machinery; in fact we are still arguing for exemptions (such as
> telehone conversations).  The previous Presidency were the keen ones.

That's not the impression I got from talking to your colleagues in
export control, or the people in the Foreign Office who're pushing for
voluntary vetting, or the MoD people who rabbit on about WMD.

The issue of whether the UK is supporting or opposing this idiocy is
critically important, given:

* 	basic human rights, including academic freedom and the right 
	to emigrate;

*	the government's commitment to an ethical foreign policy;

*	your own department's commitment to making the UK the best 
	place in the world for electronic commerce;

*	the importance to the UK of invisible exports (such as the 100 
	million that Cambridge earns every year from training foreign 
	undergraduates and research students, much of which could be at
	risk if many of them need personal export licences); and

*	the findings of the Trade and Industry select committee, 

that I think the DTI's position should be clarified.

I therefore request that you release, under the Open Government
provisions, all DTI documents relating to introducing controls on
intangible exports including all communications with, and minutes of
meetings with, officials of other departments, EU officials and US
officials.

Regards

Ross