🚀 go-pugleaf

[  I posted the following earlier today to comp.sys.sun.admin,
   comp.unix.solaris, and alt.sys.sun; but later, it occurred
   to me that the not-terribly-active can.sun-stroke would be
   at least as appropriate (if not more so).  For those who've
   already seen it, sorry about the duplication.  ]

When I went to fetch the most recent edition of the 4.1.4 libc
jumbo patch, I found that SunSolve Online wouldn't let me grab
a copy of the so-called "domestic version".  Some time ago, it
was possible to grab 102544-02 without a problem, but now that
-02 has gotten superseded by -04, I can no longer get 102544-04,
and have to use 102545-04 instead.  (More accurately, if I fetch
102544-04, all it contains is a README telling me that we're not
allowed to have the real patch, since it contains cryptographic
functions which may not be exported outside the US without prior
approval of the US government.)

It's always been my understanding that, for the purposes of DES
(and other cryptographic) stuff, Canada was considered to have
a blanket approval.  It's certainly true that most other things
available from various FTP sites in the US label anything with
cryptographic routines in them as "restricted for use in the US
and Canada", or some variant of that.  And many FTP servers in
the US do, in fact, enforce that, by permitting access to those
restricted packages for US and Canadian sites, but disallowing
access by others.

So, my question(s) ... Is this recent change on SunSolve Online
a configuration botch (and, if so, will it be fixed soon)?.  Or
is it Sun's reaction to the Helms bill?  Are we now considered
to be the moral equivalent of Libya and Iraq, or what?

Mark Bartelt                                       416/978-5619
Canadian Institute for                    mark@cita.toronto.edu
Theoretical Astrophysics                  mark@cita.utoronto.ca

"Nur eine Waffel taugt!"   --   Parsifal, in an Eggo commercial