🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug22.054746.13805@uwm.edu>, markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Hunk) writes:
> In article <1992Aug20.155927.25742@nb.rockwell.com> wade@nb.rockwell.com (Wade Guthrie) writes:
> >
> >PLEASE NOTE:  It is likely ILLEGAL to export encryption/decryption algorithms
> >from the U.S. to any other country (the original poster is from Africa).
> 
> That's tantamount to telling me I can't leave the country.  

No, it's not.  It's tantamount to telling you that you can't leave the country, snag someone
off the street and blabber about encryption.  This is different.  You're not likely to do
that.  What's more likely is for you to go to a government or to a conference and tell someone.
Our government watches that sort of thing (but don't worry, it's just the CIA -- they didn't
even know that the Soviet Union was going broke. . . :->).

Now, if you know a little about cryptography, you probably wouldn't tell anyone anything they
didn't already know.  I believe that the theory on this is that if you protect the little
stuff, then the big stuff will be even better protected.

If, on the other hand, you know a lot about cryptography, then you already know about laws
such as this.  The government keeps universities well apraised of the legal ramifications of
dissemination of their research (especially when this research is government funded, which a
tad of it is).

> Such a law [...] is unenforceable

See above.  Besides, since when has the government put enforcability on its list of what
makes something legal (I know, sometimes they do; but, sometimes they do not).

> and in all likehood unconstitutional.

Nope.  Even given freedom of the press, if you tell a government secret to a hostile
government our government can fine, imprison, and even kill you (remember Benedict Arnold,
the Rosenburgs, or --that scum-- Walker?).  Freedom of the press does not extend to 
government secrets (except, apperantly, for Aviation Week :->).  (In fact, freedom of the
press isn't what it used to be given the Supreme Court rulings against things like 
pornography, but this is not a soap box on which I feel it is appropriate to stand right now).

> The day people get arrested for disseminating a branch of pure mathematics is
> the day an oppressive government needs to be brought down.

Or, even, disseminating a branch of pure Physics, you think?.  The government is quite frank
about compartmentalizing information about the reactions of heavy nucleii in the presence of 
certain types of radiation -- even if you figure out on your own how to make an atomic bomb,
you are not allowed to tell foreign governments.

Wade
wade@nb.rockwell.com
Rockwell has nothing to do with my statements here.