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FC: Is this man a crypto-criminal? The Feds won't say...



------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Sat, 15 Jan 2000 10:02:12 -0500
To:             	politech@vorlon.mit.edu
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Is this man a crypto-criminal? The Feds won't say...
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com
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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.

[...]

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