Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 03:38:07 +0200 From: Julian Howard Stacey <jhs@vector.eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de> To: rgrimes@gndrsh.aac.dev.com Cc: current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Crypt code summary(2). Message-ID: <199506260138.DAA22883@vector.eikon.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
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Rod, cc current@freebsd.org Re. your: > After that is done we would need a machine running > FreeBSD to set up the cvs/ctm/sup stuff on, heck if I am going to try > and port that to any other platform or even try!!! Thank you for having considered helping set up the international FreeBSD crypt site, but please do Not do this ! It should not be created or administered by people subject to USA law. Purpose of the site is to achieve something that would be illegal if done under USA legal jurisdiction, but is perfectly legal under other jurisdictions: namely the worldwide distribution of secure encryption (presumably both what the USA currently bans, & whatever encryption software the USA may later extend the ban to). If anyone subject to USA law helps set up or administer the non USA crypt site, they will by their very presence create a conflict of interests between intrusive USA legal requirements, their chances of arrest by US Feds, & FreeBSD world requirements for cryptographic software. If no USA citizens or residents are involved in the work, the US govt will have noone to prosecute. Leave this work to a non USA citizen in South Africa or Germany etc, If they need help they can ask you or others for advice, (If they are diplomatic, they'll ask for advice on CVS in general, with no specific reference as to purpose of the intended CVS FTP & mail base) No doubt the people who have already volunteered to set up this site will appreciate private mail from people who happen to notice anything in code that might embarass US citizens with their government. I wrote that I'd deny information about our crypt sources etc, to any USA government official. You seemed to think that illegal ?. Wrong. The site is to be outside the USA to avoid USA law. We Britons, Germans & S.Africans etc outside the USA are Not subject to USA law. My non co-operation with the USA government would be totally legal. If any USA law enforcement person shows up out of USA jurisdiction to question anyone involved in the new site, we can call the police to forcibly remove USA Feds from our territory, thus USA officials cannot force us to divulge information that might prejudice our USA FreeBSD friends. No USA citizen or resident should have write access to any of the crypt areas of the international site. With no write access, the USA government cannot prosecute you for aiding & abetting, also the International site is free from the danger of having the USA govt. say to one of its residents or citizens: Either you rlogin to SA/Germany right now, & delete that crypt stuff, or we're gonna' arrest you for [whatever they choose]. Please do not create a conflict of interest by involving yourself with the set up or admin of this site, it could compromise you with the US authorities, would create a conflict of interest, & would detract from the objective of a site independent of USA jurisdiction. Ref. the Aachen site, you asked me to let kuku@ speak for himself, hopefully he will, meantime I can tell you about a year or so ago he gave several of us facilities on that machine explicitly so we could create a 2nd site. We had no intention to restrict crypt code access, rather the opposite in fact. (The work didn't get done for a variety of reasons, but it's still on my list). I'd really appreciate if you just did crypt code integration issues (where you seem to be making progress :-), and left the issue of foreign sites & international law to us, the `foreign' site owners of the rest of the planet, we have our own laws, & intrusion of USA law is offensive. The safest solution to the problem the USA government has forced on us all, is if the citizens of the rest of the world arrange their own crypt site & mail list etc, without `write access' involvement of USA citizens or residents. If a USA citizen or resident is asked to help set up or admin a non USA crypt site, please refer the invitation to the lists, for non USA citizens or residents to work on instead. Of course, if someone in SA were to ask someone in the USA to set up a strawberry fruit crop CVS database, & after he'd finished, & had trained his successor, & had his write access removed, ... if at that point the site owners suddenly changed their site usage, then used it for ... well perhaps storing computer programs or something ... well, the guy who had done the initial install for strawberries might be in the clear (though it would still be be better if he'd not done the set up). (I mention this just in case any USA regulated person feels a burning desperate desire to config a CVS system somewhere, & is 110% certain that no one else on the planet outside the USA is available for the job ;-) Julian Stacey, Germany. Recommended <jhs@freebsd.org>, Alternate <jhs@regent.e-technik.tu-muenchen.de>
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