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Re: Will Debian grow and stay?



On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:08, ken keanon wrote:

(snip)

> I roughly know that the US and non-US version got to do with encryption.
> But what is the restriction? People in US or outside US can download either
> version, right?

In very general terms - as I understand it the restriction is the US ban on 
the export of 'encryption software'.    (Phil Zimmerman ran into this with 
PGP.   How Micro$oft get around it I don't know, maybe they've just got big 
lawyers and lots of influence.   Maybe their apps are so patently insecure 
the spooks don't care  ;).    

So, to avoid the spooks from throwing some Debian mirror's owner into jail 
for 50,000 years for including some app. with encryption built in, such apps 
are only carried on mirrors outside the US.   

cr



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