[18622] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [Clips] Can writing software be a crime?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steve Furlong)
Wed Oct 5 15:51:08 2005
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 15:16:44 -0400
From: Steve Furlong <demonfighter@gmail.com>
Reply-To: Steve Furlong <demonfighter@gmail.com>
To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Cc: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
In-Reply-To: <p062309bfbf69b6bfd81a@68.167.57.91>
On 10/5/05, R.A. Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com> wrote:
> Can writing software be a crime?
...
> The Perez-Melara case, in comparison, represents the first time the
> government has attempted to prosecute the developer of a software that c=
an
> be used for both lawful purposes (surreptitiously monitoring conversatio=
ns
> with the consent of one party, or with the "implied" consent of an emplo=
yee
> or a minor) or for unlawful purposes (eavesdropping without the consent =
of
> either party).
...
> What exactly did Perez-Melara do that was illegal? Was it writing the
> software? Selling it? Advertising it?
Some years ago, when Clinton was still Prez, I skirted the US's crypto
("munitions") export rules by writing crypto code as a literate
program (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/lp.html). Because
the digital file was a "document" rather than "source code", it
skirted the then laws concerning export.
That's wouldn't help here. Nowadays any source code I write which
might meet with official disapproval resides encrypted on my hard
drive. I distribute it pseudonymously. (crypto sign the tgz and the
email cover letter, then email it through an anonymizer.) It won't do
me much good for job hunting or other reputation-based benefits, but
it should keep me out of legal trouble.
For now. But, as has been asked before by people I used to consider
paranoid, how long before the US government considers a PGP keyring or
an encrypted partition to be prima facie evidence of criminalty?
(YMMV for non-US residents.)
--
There are no bad teachers, only defective children.
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