[6395] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Is this man a crypto-criminal? The Feds won't say...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Sat Jan 15 20:52:12 2000
Message-Id: <4.3.0.29.0.20000115100231.00aecf00@mail.well.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2000 10:02:51 -0500
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
*********
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,33672,00.html
Is This Man a Crypto Criminal?
by Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
3:00 a.m. 15.Jan.2000 PST
Crypto maven John Young has a problem.
He may be a felon, guilty of a federal
crime punishable by years in prison. Or he
may not be. He'd just like to know one
way or another.
The 63-year-old architect and owner of
the popular Cryptome site has posted a
copy of PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
encryption software for the world to
download.
Young's seemingly innocuous act might
violate new US government regulations
that restrict placing privacy-protecting
crypto programs on the Web. Therein lies
the uncertainty. The rules are much less
onerous than the previous version, but
they still apply.
"The fact that questions still remain
about what does and does not violate the
law demonstrates that these regulations
continue to cloud the situation," said
David Sobel, general counsel of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.
So Young decided to be intrepid -- and
perhaps risk a confrontation with the
Feds.
"If it's not right, someone will tell me. If I
go to a lawyer to ask, they'll advise
caution. Every time I go to a lawyer they
advise me not to do it, so I don't go any
more," he said.
The Department of Commerce, which
published the regulations and is in charge
of arresting crypto-miscreants, declined
to comment. Eugene Cottilli, a spokesman
for Commerce's bureau of export
administration, could not secure an
official response from government lawyers
on Friday.
[...]
