Re: US Encryption Policy Change Now Official!
On 13 Jan 2000, Siggy Brentrup wrote:
> Erik Andersen <andersen@xmission.com> writes:
>
> > Looks like it is now official!!! It looks like we
> > can now export Open Source encryption without a license!
> > The only restriction seems to be:
> >
> > "The exporter must submit to the Bureau of Export Administration a copy of the
> > source code, or a written notification of its Internet location, by the time of
> > export. Foreign products made with the unrestricted source code do not require
> > review and classification by the U.S. Government for reexport."
> >
> > http://linuxtoday.com/stories/15034.html
>
> I followed the links on that page and found in the summary of
> http://www.epic.org/crypto/export_controls/regs_1_00.html
>
> <cite>
> Restrictions on terrorist supporting states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
> North Korea, Sudan or Syria), their nationals and other sanctioned
> entities are not changed by this rule.
> </cite>
>
> IMHO this isn't DFSG compliant!
Well, it certainly isn't, but that's irrelevant.
The DFSG applies to software licenses, not national laws.
As long as the US govt. will allow us to host the non-US stuff in the US,
it doesn't matter particularly to us if they don't want cubans to download
it. Since there's absolutely nothing they can expect us to do about it
(maybe put up a README saying 'cubans go away' -- terrorists are well
known for reading readmes) we should be fine.
I think it's quite possibly illegal to export other parts of debian to
terrorist supporting regimes anyway...
Jules
/----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------\
| Jelibean aka | jules@jellybean.co.uk | 6 Evelyn Rd |
| Jules aka | jules@debian.org | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
+----------------+-------------------------------+---------------------+
| War doesn't demonstrate who's right... just who's left. |
| When privacy is outlawed... only the outlaws have privacy. |
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