Re: CJR returned to sender

At 4:43 PM 10/26/95, Jeff Weinstein wrote:

>  The ITARs are currently keeping us(Netscape) from distributing
>our US-only products to people within the United States.  We have
>asked for clarification from the government about network distribution,
>such as how much verification of location and citizenship of the
>recipient we must do, and have yet to receive a response.  That
>makes it more than just an export issue, at least for us.

And I agree that this is a much more important issue than whether a t-shirt
can get an OK for export or not.

If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately granted, what useful information
will be derived, or what implications for Netscape's question will be
discovered?

If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately denied, ditto?

Distribution over networks--which is happening every day, and which is
happening every time the Cypherpunks list contains code fragments and other
useful comments on crypto tools--is a much more serious issue.

The t-shirt joke is unlikely to help. (For all those who commented that
wearing the munitions shirt is rilly, rilly kool, I say "Great!" Wear it in
the mosh pits, just lie to people about how the t-shirt "has been
classified as a munition." It hasn't been as of this writing.)

--Tim May

Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Timothy C. May writes:
> At 4:43 PM 10/26/95, Jeff Weinstein wrote:
> 
> If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately granted, what useful information
> will be derived,

Bar coded source code will be declared to be exportable under the
ITAR. This will be the first time machine readable crypto code is
declared exportable.

> If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately denied, ditto?

It will not only prove embarassing because the situation is so silly,
and produce vast amounts of added P.R., but may very well prove to be
an ideal test case -- the speech in question is so political, and the
demonstrable harm to the national security so non-existant, that the
court case would be of value.

Of course, Tim won't be seeing this posting (as he has declared me to
be on his kill list) so he'll keep claiming the exercise is useless,
but I think its extremely valuable. Go for it! Don't let the grumpy
folk tell you this is a "joke". Its no more funny than the entire
export control regime.

Perry

In message <acb5766d09021004a512@[205.199.118.202]>, Timothy C. May writes:
[...ITAR preventing Netscap from distributing the non-40bit Netscape
effectavally...]
>And I agree that this is a much more important issue than whether a t-shirt
>can get an OK for export or not.

I doubt anyone would disagree.

>If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately granted, what useful information
>will be derived,

The fuzzy line dividing exportable goods from non-exportable goods
will have gotten slightly clearer.  I admit it isn't all that novel
or intresting, or even in this case _useful_ result.  Esp since
the PGP book appears to be exportable.

However I think it is a good idea to slowly approch the dividing
line between exportable and non-exportable.  Wouldn't it be nice
to be able to hold up the shirt and say "this is exportable", and
then scan it & save it onto a floppy and then say "this is not"
(assuming that a floppy of the shirt is denyed CJ) when arguing
with someone about how arbatary the export laws are?

(Also we may find a better quality shirt printer and actually be
able to print readably not only CODE128 barcodes, but some of the
more advanced encoding methods that store as much as 40K a page...
how big is the PGP source?)

>                  or what implications for Netscape's question will be
>discovered?

Not much.

>If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately denied, ditto?

That would be much better.  More free publicity.  An example of how
impossabble it is to enforce the ITAR that anyone should be able to
understand.


Of corse in either case having the CJR steps posted *is* actually
valuable to anyone who hopes to take a shareware (or comercial, or
totally free) product through the same process (as opposed to 
anonumously posting it & not getting payed).


>Distribution over networks--which is happening every day, and which is
>happening every time the Cypherpunks list contains code fragments and other
>useful comments on crypto tools--is a much more serious issue.

Yes if distribution over the networks were allowed nobody would care
about the shirt.  Of corse.

>The t-shirt joke is unlikely to help. (For all those who commented that
>wearing the munitions shirt is rilly, rilly kool, I say "Great!" Wear it in
>the mosh pits, just lie to people about how the t-shirt "has been
>classified as a munition." It hasn't been as of this writing.)

I susspect the help the shirts will provide will be minimial.  They
may help cypherpunks & cyphergroupies spot each other on the street,
but that is of limited value.  They may help spread the word about
how foolish the ITAR is, and that is their only real value (well
aside from entertainment).

(and yeah it is a shame the shirt actually says "has been classified",
I had thought I said "qualifyes as a" which would have been correct -
but that may just be my revisionest memory kicking in)

Timothy C. May wrote:
> 
> At 4:43 PM 10/26/95, Jeff Weinstein wrote:
> 
> >  The ITARs are currently keeping us(Netscape) from distributing
> >our US-only products to people within the United States.  We have
> >asked for clarification from the government about network distribution,
> >such as how much verification of location and citizenship of the
> >recipient we must do, and have yet to receive a response.  That
> >makes it more than just an export issue, at least for us.
> 
> And I agree that this is a much more important issue than whether a t-shirt
> can get an OK for export or not.
> 
> If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately granted, what useful information
> will be derived, or what implications for Netscape's question will be
> discovered?
> 
> If the CJR for the t-shirt is ultimately denied, ditto?

  It will force the bureaucrats to make a decision, which will be
the subject to much public scrutiny.  Hopefully it will generate a
stir in the press and inform many more people of the problems of
the current system.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.