From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)
Subject: What's troubling Dave Sternlight now....
Organization: Partnership for an America Free Drug
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 01:35:50 GMT

strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>
>Ed Hamrick says that once the cat is out of the bag, publicly available
>information is freely exportable.
>
>I find this both troubling and inconsistent with what I know.
>
>It's troubling because it would permit any old provocateur to post
>restricted information on a bulletin board and then have it claimed
>that it was then exportable. Given the international nature of
>such bulletin boards, the provocateur could be someone outside
>the U.S. and thus beyond the reach of the law himself. That
>would vitiate elementary safeguards for those protections
>we might agree are legitimate.

However, you've just forgotten something rather important -- the
purpose of controlling secret information is to keep it secret. Once
it is no longer secret, there is no longer even the remotest point in
preventing export. Indeed, in the case of information, once it is
publically available, there is no point whatsoever in controlling its
export -- the Bulgarian Embassy staffers can just go to the corner
bookstore and take the books home in their diplomatic bags even if you
do cut off every last phone line and every last mail plane that might
be used to send the information out.

David throughout all these discussions has forgotten one of the most
obvious points about laws: laws are worthless if they serve no
purpose. Laws do not exist for their own sake -- they exist to try to
accomplish goals. If it is impossible to achieve the purpose for
which the law was intended, the law is pointless no matter how hard
you protest. A law that tries to stop our enemies abroad from gaining
access to public information is incapable of functioning, and
therefore idiotic ab initio. There is no way to achieve the goal of
such a law, so no matter what the law is it's worthless. You may
breast beat about how important it is to keep our enemies from hearing
about this public information, and you may scream about how many
innocents will die if they get it, but no amount of wishing will make
water flow up hill. You can't regain your virginity and you can't stop
your enemies from getting hold of what anyone at all can just go to a
bookstore and read.

>It's also inconsistent with what I know, since though DES may
>be published, it's still not freely exportable. Ask any large
>company, with adequate in-house legal staffs, who publishes DES.

Well, McGraw-Hill sells Andy Tennenbaum's (sorry if I misspelled his
name) book on computer networks world wide, and it has full DES
sources in it. I guess that their lawyers disagree with you. Even if
they don't, whats the point -- the Russians already have damn good DES
chips and have for years. Who cares if its illegal if the law serves
no rational purpose?

>A couple of examples:
>Lotus Notes, which uses RSA, is not exportable though it may be bought
>at many software stores, as far as I know.

It isn't a book, which is what we were discussing. The rules for books
are much harder on the government than the rules for diskettes --
thats because judges understand that books are obviously something
that was meant in the First Amendment.  None the less, I'd hold that
this rule is pointless given that any espionage agency around the
world wanting a copy of Lotus Notes can simply walk into a store and
buy it and get it out of the country at least four ways I can name:
they can fly it out on a commercial flight (and likely will not be
molested), they can send it by modem (and will certainly not be
molested), they can mail it out (and will probably but not certainly
not be molested) or they can get it out in a diplomatic bag (and will
NEVER be molested). Given that the law restricting the export of Lotus
Notes has no potential to stop foreigners from getting copies of it,
the law is pointless.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com
--
Laissez faire, laissez passer. Le monde va de lui meme.