US Mass Market Crypto Exportable

[Brian Gladman]

From: "Owen Lewis" <oml@sysrx.uk.com>
To: <ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 7:57 PM
Subject: RE: US Mass Market Crypto Exportable


> > From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> > [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of John Young
> > Sent: 06 June 2002 16:13
> > To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> > Subject: US Mass Market Crypto Exportable
>
[snip]
> - Export to a destination outside the above requires an individual export
> licence, i.e. an export application must be made for each exportation
unless
> and until an open licence is granted. Presently, export licences may take
in
> excess of three months to grant and require perusal by FCO, MOD and DTI.
> However, there is the following quaint caveat. If the product is given
away
> freely or put on general sale to the mass market, the restrictions are
> waived. I.e. one can conveniently act as a box shifter for PGP etc.

This is a nice feature which promotes the sale of strong crypto products as
mass market items since they would become subject to controls if not sold as
such.

It is also important to note that souce code is not export controlled.

Interestingly, even hardware is increasingly moved around in source code
form (VHDL etc) since what many need for embedded systems development are
designs that can be placed on their custom microchips as 'standard'
components. Hence the ability to freely exchange abstract crypto related
designs in the form of software or hardware description languages is a very
important freedom.

Designs in C, VHDL, etc. are now easy to produce and modern 'home' PCs are
now so powerful that they can run hardware simulators that can check out
designs in detail to get them right without ever seeing real hardware.  I
done just this for a number of international clients.

Of course we now have the current UK government attempt to gain control of
abstract exports so we need to support the efforts being made by Ross and
others to prevent these freedoms from being eroded.

   Brian Gladman