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An interesting aside: In 1998, India tested its nuclear weapons (Pokhran-II [1]). Almost immediately, US imposed sanctions. One of the terms of the sanction? "
by vmurthy 7y ago
An interesting aside: In 1998, India tested its nuclear weapons (Pokhran-II [1]). Almost immediately, US imposed sanctions. One of the terms of the sanction?
"Bar the export of certain defense and technology material" [2].
I can't find a source but I do remember that IE used to ship with reduced encryption.
Perhaps we have learnt some lessons since then :-)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II
[2]http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9805/13/india.us/ http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9805/13/india.us/
- lgeorget 7y agoIndeed, encryption algorithms and implementation are subject to restrictions on export similar to munitions. It used to be very strict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
- dpacmittal 7y agoThere's an interesting story about PGP author circumventing that law by publishing his code in a book.
- pvg 7y agoWhat's the relationship between these two things? The export controls were broad, in place before 1998 and not specific to India.
- kyshoc 7y agoThis is why my hair stands up every time we have the "backdoored encryption" discussion -- we had, and probably still have, people in positions of power that think of encryption as something that should be regulated on the order that guided missiles are.
- vmurthy 7y agoAs a technologist, I agree with your view. But in cases like sanctions, I think the "Let me show who has the power" mentality takes over. So, a country (say USA) can pressure its companies (like Microsoft in 1998) to stop providing some features/services/products to have some leverage over the sanctioned country. The unfortunate pattern in history has been that politics wins over rationality.
- pvg 7y agoDo you have some reference to something that suggests that this is what actually happened? I don't think the US government made Microsoft put weak encryption in export versions of IE because India tested a nuke.
- vmurthy 7y agoSorry! I tried so bad to find it but couldn't :-( Someday ..
- pvg 7y agoI think you can't find it because it just didn't happen that way and you're misremembering something. The export-crippled cryptography in browsers was a real thing but it got there before the Indian nuclear test and for other reasons.