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As I said in my original message about Pegasus: The NSA consider this kind of thing "crypto with a hole" It's stupid, the hole is the crypto. But, the rest of the code is considered by the Agency to be an "ancilliary device" as defined under ITAR.
On Tue, 14 Nov 1995, Rich Salz wrote: > As I said in my original message about Pegasus: > The NSA consider this kind of thing "crypto with a hole" > It's stupid, the hole is the crypto. But, the rest of > the code is considered by the Agency to be an "ancilliary > device" as defined under ITAR. The interesting question is how narrow the interface has to be before it becomes in violation of the ITAR. Is the key question whether the "holes" are specifically designed for the insertion of cryptographic materials, or is it the fact that they could be used to support cryptographic enhancements?
Simon Spero writes: >The interesting question is how narrow the interface has to be before it >becomes in violation of the ITAR. Is the key question whether the "holes" >are specifically designed for the insertion of cryptographic materials, >or is it the fact that they could be used to support cryptographic >enhancements? If the ban *is* due to Category XIII (b) (5), the wording would indicate that the "hole" must be "specifically designed or modified" to support crypto. One that was specifically designed to support some sort of block compression library should be exempt under that paragraph, even if someone else were to write and distribute a crypto library with an identical interface. 'Course, IANAL, and the interpreters of the ITAR don't really seem to care what it *says*, anyway.