Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 15:51:44 -0700 From: Sean Eric Fagan <sef@Kithrup.COM> To: dgy@rtd.com Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: DES policy Message-ID: <199705122251.PAA27081@kithrup.com> In-Reply-To: <199705122220.PAA02508.kithrup.freebsd.hackers@seagull.rtd.com>
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In article <199705122220.PAA02508.kithrup.freebsd.hackers@seagull.rtd.com> you write: >Greetings! > Previous releases always were "export clean" in this regard >(I've checked through 2.1.6 but can't find my 2.1.7R CD at the moment). >Yet, it appears that the 2.2.1R CD *does* include the DES stuff. > Has there been a change in policy regarding the inclusion of >the DES stuff on the CD-ROMs? If so, could someone indicate if the >policy is expected to remain in force and any reasons behind it I, of course, don't know any official reason. Well, not officially :). Late last year, a federal judge in California (that's in the US, for those who didn't know) decided that the government's rules for getting an export certificate for encryption code were overly broad, intrusive, and slow, and thus were a violation of the first Ammendment to the US Constitution (the one about Congress making no laws abridging the freedom of teh press, and other such stuff). There is a lot of doubt over just what her ruling means. There is a very good chance that it doesn't apply outside of California -- however, Walnut Creed CD-ROM is in California,, so that's helpful. Sadly, what is not helpful is that the gov't changed their regulations in response to this ruling, so there is considerable doubt as to whether it still applies. That means that WC CD-ROM and Jordan Hubbard could find themselves arrested for violating the ITAR regulations. (And the rest of the world will laugh, really -- the regulations are pitiful, idiotic, and serve no interest but the NSA's. And for what is included on the CD-ROM, not even theirs.) Meanwhile, the EFF is working on finding what the new rules mean with respect to the ruling, and various parties, including some Senators (those are Congress critters, for those who don't know), are pushing for very different cryptography rules. Working against them, the Forces of Evil include the President (that's Bill Clinton) who (probably on behalf of the NSA) is pushing to have all non-key-escrow forms of encryption made illegal. This is BAD.
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