[3714] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Commerce Press release on Wassenaar "adjustment"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Schear)
Sat Dec 5 11:10:59 1998
In-Reply-To: <v04003a14b28cab34b987@[204.91.138.223]>
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:10:15 -0800
To: Kathleen Ellis <ellis@epic.org>
From: Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
<excerpt>This really is _really_ bad. Finland, Canada, Ireland..all
member countries of this arrangement, had previously liberalized their
encryption export policies.
</excerpt>
Not really too surprising. The U.S. gov't has been pushing for this for
some time. This may make things a bit more difficult for some software
developers for a while, but not for long. The major companies will, of
course, immediately knuckle under (look for NA to adjust PGP to
adhere). This will leave the road wide open for the adventurous among
us, especially the open source folks (e.g., Mozilla tweekers).
Like a fistfull of sand, the harder they squeeze the more will run
through their fingers.
--Steve
