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This is exactly what I fear happens when we allow bad laws to stay in a "well it's there but we don't enforce it" state.

Is the way around this to develop crypto systems outside the US?



Laws that aren't actively enforced by the state are solely there exist so that they can be used to persecute undesirables. It creates the illusion of a free society while keeping an implied state of control against the public. The only just act to do is repeal or nullify the law.


If I remember correctly, someone published a book which contained source code in monospace for PGP so that it would fall under freedom of speech and was allowed to leave the US. But that's from memory, I'm not sure it really did circumvent that law or that it was PGP.

Edit: Ah, AlyssaRowan actually mentions[1] this further down the comment thread:

> PGP 2.6.2 was exported as a book to call the bluff of the whole thing

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8552169


Yes, it was PGP, and yes, it got around the law. The issue was indeed that exporting it as software made it subject to ITAR, but published as a book, it was considered speech.

The tactic was never tested in court with PGP, but it was upheld in at least one other case I'm aware of, Bernstein v. United States. Thank you yet again, DJB.


That doesn't prove anything. You can also export a physics textbook without the issues you would run into exporting a nuclear weapon.


Except that you don't really need to buy expensive and probably-hard-to-get-by stuff to turn the book with code into something useful (or munition, in the US government's eyes) whereas with nuclear weapons you somehow need to get a radioactive warhead or something.


No, you need something even harder - expert knowledge.




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