3 ms·

This reminds me that encryption was once classified as a munition in the US too for the purpose of exporting.

• halostatue 12y ago
  It still is, to an extent: if you have strong enough encryption products, you have to get an export permit for it, even now. I’ve had to sign ITAR certifications when I’ve worked for U.S.-based companies, and some companies here in Canada have to prevent any Iranian-born employees from working on certain software in order to comply with ITAR (even if those employees are now Canadian citizens). It’s stupid and I’m glad that I don’t work for those sorts of companies anymore.
  • yuhong 12y ago
    For most "mass market" software, since 2010 all you need is an encryption registration. Before that you had to do a classification request which was a harder and more difficult process. I wonder why this took until 2010 before it was fixed.
• tobiasu 12y ago
  It still is, and pretty much every nation on earth has signed the agreement. Most nations don't make themselves look like idiots by enforcing it against a bunch of open-source hippies, but try to export some crypto software for military use to North Korea... http://www.wassenaar.org/ http://www.wassenaar.org/ it's in chapter 5, can't remember whether a or b Windriver recently got booked because of exporting OpenSSL...
  • yuhong 12y ago
    I think Wassenaar has an explicit exception for "public domain" software.