Wired: US To Follow EU Crypto Lead

[Brian Gladman]

From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@eloka.demon.co.uk>
To: "ukcrypto" <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2000 9:12 PM
Subject: Re: Wired: US To Follow EU Crypto Lead


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brian Gladman" <brian.gladman@btinternet.com>
> To: <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
> Sent: 06 June 2000 22:49
> Subject: Re: Wired: US To Follow EU Crypto Lead
>
>
> > My own perception of the six (or more) year effort in Europe to remove
> > cryptography export controls is that the real support for this has come
> from
> > Germany and the European Commission and that the UK has been dragging
its
> > feet over much of this period.  I know for sure that certain parts of
the
> UK
> > government machine have sought on more than one occassion to undermine
my
> > own efforts in Europe to secure the removal of cryptography export
> controls.
>
>  Is there a need to do this if the implementation is in software? Geneva
is
> no further in time from LHR that my office is from London. The Swiss have
no
> specific crypto import or export regulations and while software
engineering
> is not cheap anywhere, software production costs are negligible. Setting
up
> a Swiss company cost less than UKP 10,000.
>
> If the implementation is in hardware, Swiss costs may be up to double UK
> costs, though the exchange rate at the present disguises this underlying
> factor.
>
> There seems to be a good case for allowing the market to decide. If
> cryptosystem production is most profitable if conducted in Switzerland,
then
> that is where it should be conducted. If countries with restrictive
regimes
> see an important economic loss that may review a stance when they would
not
> otherwise doing so. That said, I believe only one person has ever made a
> million from cryptosystems -and he did it from Switzerland :-)
>
> Owen Lewis
>
>
>