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0 pointsrunako1y ago0 comments

I'm old enough to remember when the US government did something very similar. For years (decades?), we banned any implementation of public-key cryptography under the guise of the technology being akin to munitions.

People made shirts with printouts of the code to RSA under the heading "this shirt is a munition." Apparently such shirts are still for sale, even though they are not classified as munitions anymore.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...

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4 comments · 2 top-level

maeil1y ago· 2 in thread

Were these implementations already easily open source accessible at the time, with tens of thousands of people already actively using them on their computers? No, right? Doesn't seem feasible this time around.

hnlmorg1y ago

Yes they were.

The ban was on exporting the code, not having the code in possession.

Furthermore it was only the US who had this ban.

I am old enough to remember this and the scoffing that European PGP users had towards their American counterparts

maeil1y ago

Sounds like it was ineffective then, despite an export ban being easier to uphold than what would amount to an import ban?

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beepbooptheory1y ago

I am not that old, but I did a deep dive on this in the past because it was just so extremely fascinating, especially reading the archives of Cypherpunk. There is a very solid, if rather bendy, line connecting all that to "crypto culture" today.

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