[4334] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
FW: VeriSign OK'd for strong-crypto exports
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (salzr@certco.com)
Sat Mar 13 23:19:27 1999
From: salzr@certco.com
To: <cryptography@c2.net>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 22:40:44 -0500
A colleague offered the following comment on the Verisign press release
forwarded with their permission.
> This appears to be a very fast implementation of the
> Administration's new crypto export policy, particularly with
> respect to the sales to online merchants, health care and
> insurance organizations. Banks and overseas subsidiaries of
> US firms already could get these approvals, at least on a
> per-sale basis.
>
> One interesting aspect of this news is that online merchants
> are a rapidly proliferating, generally small business and
> uncontrolled sort of market, quite unlike corporate
> subsidiaries, banks, insurers and medical firms (who are much
> more heavily regulated). If sales to anyone claiming to be a
> web merchant are now decontrolled for 128-bit encryption, the
> cat and the bag are not even in the same country anymore.
