[Cryptography] Fwd: [IP] RSA Response to Media Claims Regarding NSA Relationship

[Peter Gutmann]

Tom Mitchell <mitch at niftyegg.com> writes:

>I think it is important that US ITAR legislation had astounding and strict
>rules about cryptography as a munition.    A system with the power of a
>Raspberry-Pi was under export restrictions.  Recall early M68000 boxes were
>limited.   Later any system that had two network NICs was restricted because
>of adaptive routing capabilities.  One IPsec project at a largish TLA company
>was hobbled back to one engineer because the market was too small for the
>legal work required to deliver it.

The old COCOM restrictions were quaint anachronisms almost as soon as they
were issued.  I remember going through the catalogue of a large PC dealership
and realising that at least 50% of their entire stock, if not more, was
export-controlled, due to things like using chips with 208+ pins, graphics
capabilities above the permitted minimum (an S3 Virge was too powerful to
export), and so on and so forth.  Within a few years, 802.11 with its
DSSS/OFDM would have rendered anything with wireless capabilities
unexportable, and the presence of a basic Riva 128/3DFX Voodoo would have done
for the rest.

Peter.