Wassenaar Statement

[Bill Frantz]

>Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 17:45:48 +0100
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>Subject: Re: Wassenaar Statement
>To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
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>
>If these reports are correct, the United States could end up being one of
>the countries with the most LIBERAL export controls.
>
>In the United States, it is currently legal to export any cryptographic
>software you like - as long as it is in printed form.  This is because
>of fears of violating the First Amendment.  Not all countries have such
>strong conventions for protecting the printed word.
>
>PGP source code is being exported in printed form, scanned in overseas,
>and then distributed from there.  If the Wassenaar Arrangement prevents
>it from being exported from its current overseas distribution site,
>a solution can be to ship it in printed form from the U.S. to a wide
>range of other countries.  As long as those countries don't prohibit
>domestic distribution of crypto software, strong cryptography can still
>be made available almost everywhere.
>
>The PGP source code books begin with a section that is, in effect, a
>"how-to" for printing software in such a way that it can be reliably
>scanned.  Each page and each line has a checksum.  The books come with
>a Perl script short enough to enter by hand that does basic checksum
>verification.  This is used to read a second, longer Perl script that
>can do error correction; and this is then used to bootstrap into the
>full script which will read the books, create all the files, organize
>the directories, and reconstruct the entire source code tree.
>
>It may be that in the future this will be the most effective way to
>communicate internationally about security software.  It would be
>good for other groups to become familiar with this technology which has
>been pioneered by PGP.
>

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