Re: Exporting Mental States

I just arrived in Ottawa, Canada from Seattle, USA.  I had sort of 
thought through exactly what Tim just described.  I had a little 
notebook with me and was doing some calculations and design of a 
fractal compression algorithm.  I started to think about El-Gamal and 
decided to look at elliptical curve algorithms.  So, I pulled out my 
copy of Applied Crypto to look up some things and started writing 
things down. (BTW: I had Applied Crypto with me for recreational 
reading on the plane, I don't normally carry it everywhere I go.)

Anyway, i got to customs in Ottawa, and they asked me if I had 
anything to declare.  I immediately thought, "Should I tell them 
about the notebook?"  I decided against it.  How does export of 
intellectual property work?

The other question they asked me was "Do you have any eggs?"  I 
started giggling.  **SARCASM ON** I always carry an egg around in my 
inside coat pocket.  Who knows when you might need one, especially 
when in a foreign country. **SARCASM OFF**  I don't know, I guess the 
question just struck me as funny.

Brad Shantz
TRISource (formerly TriLogic) Windows Development Services

On Fri, 13 Oct 1995, Brad Shantz wrote:

> I just arrived in Ottawa, Canada from Seattle, USA.  I had sort of 
Wellcome to Ottawa.

> Anyway, i got to customs in Ottawa, and they asked me if I had 
> anything to declare.  I immediately thought, "Should I tell them 
> about the notebook?"  I decided against it.  How does export of 
> intellectual property work?

Don't worry about it, Canada's not even a foreign country according to ITAR.
If you have pgp on that machine, you haven't exported it, but it's still 
covered by export controls.

We pretty much have exactly the same export restrictions on US origin 
software, but if it comes from anywhere else (including Canada of course)
it can be exported without a permit to all but four countries (iran, cuba
and two others) and cannot be exported at all to UN embargoed countries
(bosnia, iraq, angola...). Since none of these have good net access, it's 
not much of a prob. The issue of whether ftp is an export hadn't resolved 
when I asked, and there might be a headache regarding US intellectual property 
and that US origin problem. 

So basically you can't export pgp, nautilus, rsaref..., but if they were 
rewritten from the ground up in Canada and put on the net, you *might* be 
ok. (that ignores the last issue, so ask Foreign Affairs and maybe a lawyer 
first, though I really can't see how a public domain idea can have a 
nationality)

ElGamal and IDEA would be completely without problems as they are not 
even American intellectual property.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and the gov has no obligation to agree with 
the advice of its own employees.

If you're interested I could mail you the address and phone no. of the export
controls division of external affairs. The policy officer was rather 
helpful. They also have a big booklet on export controls.

If you plan on going over, might as well ask about the American 
citizenship problem that's come up in the Anguila thread. Sounds very funny.
(of course that would say nothing about the US State Dept's opinion on it)