[2917] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: US to Ease Crypto Export
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rick Smith)
Tue Jul 7 15:43:08 1998
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 1998 14:32:13 -0500
To: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>, cryptography@c2.net
From: Rick Smith <rick_smith@securecomputing.com>
In-Reply-To: <199807071518.LAA26795@dewdrop2.mindspring.com>
>Source:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-07/07/064l-070798-idx.html
> .....
>Commerce Secretary William Daley plans to announce today
>that the government will give U.S. software companies new
>freedom to export their most sophisticated data-scrambling
>technology to financial institutions chartered in 45 countries,
>according to Clinton administration sources.
In other words, the BXA rules have formalized yet another long established
ITAR exemption. I love the way they dribble out these changes, each with a
big announcement. The media appearance is that they're loosening things up
when they're really just making the rules catch up with the status quo.
Now I realize that this is an improvement in practice, since it greatly
reduces the amount of paperwork and delay necessary to export strong crypto
to financial institutions. But this isn't a fundamental change in policy,
it's just a change in procedures.
Rick.
smith@securecomputing.com
