US Mass Market Crypto Exportable

[John Young]

Owen Lewis wrote:

>You do not like the categorisation of much cryptographic material as DUEC
>and you are welcome to that view. Nevertheless, the reality is that *it is
>so controlled* and that many such controls have their origin in UN
>resolutions. Therefore, though your statement might be true in its words it
>is certainly untrue in its burden of meaning.

These are most interesting remarks, and it would be persuasive to see
citations of UN resolutions which unlie encryption export controls, however 
open or obscure they may be. 

I do not recall public references to the role of the UN in the crypto export 
wars of the past nor in the present, despite heavy coverage of various 
international treaties and regimes which guide nations' encryption 
policies. The role of the UN in the formulation and implementation in 
these international agreements regulating encryption  would be 
informative, even surprising if truly determinative rather than,
as all too often, mere puffery to cloak the strong nations' imposition
of policy on the weak.

Moreover, there have been attempts to relax encryption controls in
order that weaker nations may protect themselves from the stronger,
and I have the impression that the UN could have been supportive
of that, though, as ever, it would have to have been done rather
quietly in order not to offend the mighty Security Council, namely 
the US and its secretly chattering backchannel cronies, and thereby 
threaten funding for the glass refuge of scoundrels.

The US, let it be repeatedly hooted, will never allow export of encryption 
it cannot crack, or otherwise have ready access to innards. And that
firm policy is not subject to UN relief, except of the faux relaxation
type issued now and then by regulatory bodies. Thus sprach the
Jesse Helms of the globe.

In any event, reading how the UN played a resolutionary role in the 
control of crypto, even if playacting, would be enlightening,