Re: LYNX-DEV SSL, Lynx & US Law

[Scott McGee (Personal)]

Philip,

Sounds sorta like you have a chip on your shoulder wrt US laws. The simple 
fact is, those of us who live in the US _ARE_ subject to US export laws 
even if we do disagree with them. Wise US citizens are unwilling to risk
antagonizing federal officials who have already shown that they are quite
happy to "make an example" of someone who didn't really do anything wrong,
but just got involved in the issue. If you have Lynx SSL patches or code,
I guess you can do what you want with them, but asking US citizens who have
such to take the risk is pretty easy for you to do since you won't be the
one who might loose everything they own defending the case.

Let me assure you that many of us in the US are just as adamant as you in
feeling that US law cannot practically be applied to the Internet, and 
should not attempt to be so applied, but until our politicians and 
lawmakers "pull their heads out", there is little we can do but lobby for
more reasonable laws. Don't ask us to break or help you break those we
are already subject to.

Oh, and France was cited as one country that does not allow crypto; quite
a bit different category than Serbia or Belarus, huh?

One final thing. I have copies of Fote's SSL stuff. Don't ask me to send
you copies, however, as I am not all that sure that either you might be
plant by US export officials and I'd wake up the next day in jail, or that
said officials might be monitoring this forum (plenty of things here to
wake up their monitoring software) and I'd still wake up in jail. It just
isn't worth that to me, nor, I suspect, to other US lynx-dev members. 

Scott

Scott McGee: Salt Lake Community College Webmaster | When in danger,
___________________________________________________| or in doubt,
Email: address@hidden (Scott McGee)         | run in circles,
Web:   http://www.slcc.edu/infotech/webmaster.html | scream and shout.
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