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Any signatory to the Wassenaar Arrangement, which includes the entirety of North America, Europe (including Russia), Australia, India, and Pacific Asia (minus C

Any signatory to the Wassenaar Arrangement, which includes the entirety of North America, Europe (including Russia), Australia, India, and Pacific Asia (minus China) must consider cryptographic technologies to be munitions for the purposes of export. Now, these restrictions have been considerably loosened to the point that the export isn't really controlled, but international law still considers it a munition. The US is hardly unique in this regard. It works the other way too. A surprising number of countries still restrict the import of cryptographic technology, including several EU states.

hansvm 6y ago
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/504/ https://xkcd.com/504/
- coderintherye 6y ago
  For those that don't click through, it repeats what is a fairly cogent argument. If cryptography is classified as a munition, then there should be legal room to argue we have the right to it as provided by the 2nd amendment.
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    Congrats, you don't get encrypted because you're not a member of a tightly regulated militia. Sarcasm aside, the only way to make sure people get encryption is to make it impossible to restrict the technology. That's how encryption ended up spreading. You don't put disruptive tech on every computer on the planet by waiting for permission.
    - hprotagonist 6y ago
      “and on that day the ACLU and the EFF cited DC vs Heller (2010), and a crack appeared in the heavens and a loud voice spoke, saying ‘oi! wot’s all this then?!’”
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      There is no definition given for what "well regulated" entails. A bunch of nerds on the internet can certainly form their own militia to practice with crypto munitions.
    - skrebbel 6y ago
      I see your point, but as a non-American who's flooded with videos of random Americans walking around supermarkets carrying semiautomatic rifles, I'm not sure what you mean with "tightly regulated militia".
      - kelnos 6y ago
        It's a joke. The text of the 2nd amendment is slightly ambiguous. Many people (myself included) believe that the intent of it was to protect citizens' right to arm themselves, but only in the context of being a member of a state-run/regulated militia. Unfortunately SCOTUS has continually widened the scope of 2A over the years. > as a non-American who's flooded with videos of random Americans walking around supermarkets carrying semiautomatic rifles You need to broaden your news sources; this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas.
        mosselman 6y ago
        > You need to broaden your news sources; this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas. The only places I have seen images like that is on sites like Reddit with some sort of 'Murica' text next to it, but it is still pretty insane that this sort of thing can be shrugged off as "this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas.". To be clear, I am not criticising you personally, but isn't it crazy that there are places in the US where people go to the cinema or super market in tactical gear and rifles and that the people around them don't run away screaming?
        jychang 6y ago
        > the intent of it was to protect citizens' right to arm themselves Unlike european countries, the american frontier was a dangerous place where every household needed a gun. Armed citizens existed regardless whether there was a militia or not.
        jcranmer 6y ago
        Except it was also seen as a civic duty for able-bodied men to join the militia. If we're talking late 18th century, the Venn diagram of gun ownership and militia membership has a very large degree of overlap.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    The the 2nd amendment is irrelevant here. That amendment only applies within the US and this is about export controls. Pretty much every US constitutional protection disintegrates once the issue becomes international.
    - throwawayffffas 6y ago
      The joke is pointed towards legislation that would make encryption illegal in the US.
mikepurvis 6y ago
I used to be involved in building and shipping research robots (from Canada) and I remember we ran into this a few times with a bog-standard industrial wifi radio that for some reason was under ITAR. Interestingly, the manufacturer of the radio was set up to ship it directly to our customer, we just couldn't integrate it into their robot and ship it from our facility. So they had to put on the radio themselves. The whole thing seemed very silly and theatre-y to me.
- cubano 6y ago
  Ah yes...the efficiencies never stop coming when you forced to skirt government mandates about tech they know almost nothing about. I have war stories for days about all times companies I worked for had to have customers pull DLLs from 3rd party sites in order to comply with completely political mandates.
  - smegger001 6y ago
    I had a professor tell me a story about a small tech company he worked at way back when, where they actually smuggled their POS terminal system by fishing boat out of the US and into Canada to sell outside the US to get around export controls even though the algorithms they used were widely known.
  - noja 6y ago
    It'll be even more efficient soon, when the backdoors come.
highmastdon 6y ago
Side note: don’t call the countries in the European Union “states”. They’re sovereign countries that have committed themselves through treaties to the Union, not a US like government body
- apatters 6y ago
  I don't think it's incorrect to call them states. They're nation states. They are regularly referred to as member states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
- zoltar 6y ago
  The European Union (EU) consists of 27 member states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
- dec0dedab0de 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure state meant a sovereign government before the united states existed. Remember, the original idea of the united states was that it was a bunch of separate governments that were federated. It still kind of is, but the federal government used to have much less control.
- implements 6y ago
  Country means “sovereign state” - no-one’s suggesting EU member states aren’t sovereign nations in the sense US states aren’t.
  - zeveb 6y ago
    U.S. states are sovereign states, just like EU states are. They United States government itself is also sovereign, in a sense that the EU government itself may or may not be. (Most) Americans live under two sovereigns: their state and the U.S.
    - jacobush 6y ago
ehnto 6y ago
Is establishing a HTTPS connection internationally exporting a munition, using a munition, or none of the above?
- lucideer 6y ago
  As far as I understand current interpretation, hosting a dowload of a piece of software that includes code capable of establishing a https connection (e.g. bundling a tls lib), on a US server, that can be dowloaded to a computer outside of the US, constitutes munitions export.
  - littlestymaar 6y ago
    TIL github is one the biggest international munitions dealer

hansvm 6y ago

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/504/ https://xkcd.com/504/

coderintherye 6y ago
For those that don't click through, it repeats what is a fairly cogent argument. If cryptography is classified as a munition, then there should be legal room to argue we have the right to it as provided by the 2nd amendment.
- deathgrips 6y ago
  Congrats, you don't get encrypted because you're not a member of a tightly regulated militia. Sarcasm aside, the only way to make sure people get encryption is to make it impossible to restrict the technology. That's how encryption ended up spreading. You don't put disruptive tech on every computer on the planet by waiting for permission.
  - hprotagonist 6y ago
    “and on that day the ACLU and the EFF cited DC vs Heller (2010), and a crack appeared in the heavens and a loud voice spoke, saying ‘oi! wot’s all this then?!’”
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    There is no definition given for what "well regulated" entails. A bunch of nerds on the internet can certainly form their own militia to practice with crypto munitions.
  - skrebbel 6y ago
    I see your point, but as a non-American who's flooded with videos of random Americans walking around supermarkets carrying semiautomatic rifles, I'm not sure what you mean with "tightly regulated militia".
    - kelnos 6y ago
      It's a joke. The text of the 2nd amendment is slightly ambiguous. Many people (myself included) believe that the intent of it was to protect citizens' right to arm themselves, but only in the context of being a member of a state-run/regulated militia. Unfortunately SCOTUS has continually widened the scope of 2A over the years. > as a non-American who's flooded with videos of random Americans walking around supermarkets carrying semiautomatic rifles You need to broaden your news sources; this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas.
      - mosselman 6y ago
        > You need to broaden your news sources; this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas. The only places I have seen images like that is on sites like Reddit with some sort of 'Murica' text next to it, but it is still pretty insane that this sort of thing can be shrugged off as "this is by no means common, except for perhaps in a few gun-happy states like Texas.". To be clear, I am not criticising you personally, but isn't it crazy that there are places in the US where people go to the cinema or super market in tactical gear and rifles and that the people around them don't run away screaming?
      - jychang 6y ago
        > the intent of it was to protect citizens' right to arm themselves Unlike european countries, the american frontier was a dangerous place where every household needed a gun. Armed citizens existed regardless whether there was a militia or not.
        jcranmer 6y ago
        Except it was also seen as a civic duty for able-bodied men to join the militia. If we're talking late 18th century, the Venn diagram of gun ownership and militia membership has a very large degree of overlap.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  The the 2nd amendment is irrelevant here. That amendment only applies within the US and this is about export controls. Pretty much every US constitutional protection disintegrates once the issue becomes international.
  - throwawayffffas 6y ago
    The joke is pointed towards legislation that would make encryption illegal in the US.

mikepurvis 6y ago

I used to be involved in building and shipping research robots (from Canada) and I remember we ran into this a few times with a bog-standard industrial wifi radio that for some reason was under ITAR. Interestingly, the manufacturer of the radio was set up to ship it directly to our customer, we just couldn't integrate it into their robot and ship it from our facility. So they had to put on the radio themselves. The whole thing seemed very silly and theatre-y to me.

cubano 6y ago
Ah yes...the efficiencies never stop coming when you forced to skirt government mandates about tech they know almost nothing about. I have war stories for days about all times companies I worked for had to have customers pull DLLs from 3rd party sites in order to comply with completely political mandates.
- smegger001 6y ago
  I had a professor tell me a story about a small tech company he worked at way back when, where they actually smuggled their POS terminal system by fishing boat out of the US and into Canada to sell outside the US to get around export controls even though the algorithms they used were widely known.
- noja 6y ago
  It'll be even more efficient soon, when the backdoors come.

highmastdon 6y ago

Side note: don’t call the countries in the European Union “states”. They’re sovereign countries that have committed themselves through treaties to the Union, not a US like government body

apatters 6y ago
I don't think it's incorrect to call them states. They're nation states. They are regularly referred to as member states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
zoltar 6y ago
The European Union (EU) consists of 27 member states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_state_of_the_European_U...
dec0dedab0de 6y ago
I'm pretty sure state meant a sovereign government before the united states existed. Remember, the original idea of the united states was that it was a bunch of separate governments that were federated. It still kind of is, but the federal government used to have much less control.
implements 6y ago
Country means “sovereign state” - no-one’s suggesting EU member states aren’t sovereign nations in the sense US states aren’t.
- zeveb 6y ago
  U.S. states are sovereign states, just like EU states are. They United States government itself is also sovereign, in a sense that the EU government itself may or may not be. (Most) Americans live under two sovereigns: their state and the U.S.
  - jacobush 6y ago

ehnto 6y ago

Is establishing a HTTPS connection internationally exporting a munition, using a munition, or none of the above?

lucideer 6y ago
As far as I understand current interpretation, hosting a dowload of a piece of software that includes code capable of establishing a https connection (e.g. bundling a tls lib), on a US server, that can be dowloaded to a computer outside of the US, constitutes munitions export.
- littlestymaar 6y ago
  TIL github is one the biggest international munitions dealer