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Mozilla Firefox Not In Violation of US Export Rules
darthcamaro writes "While the internet may know no borders, the US government does. There are a number of rules that affect software vendors, including encryption export regulations from the US Department of Commerce and export sanctions by the Department of Treasury. But what do you do when your application is open source and freely available to anyone in the world? Do the same the rules apply? It's a question that Mozilla asked the US government about. The answer they received could have profound implications not just for Firefox but for all open source software vendors. 'We really couldn't accept the notion that these government rules could jeopardize the participatory nature of an open source project, so we sought to challenge it,' Harvey Anderson, VP and General Counsel of Mozilla, told InternetNews.com. 'We argued that First Amendment free speech rights would prevail in this scenario. The government took our filing and then we got back a no-violation letter, which is fantastic.'"
Or some way to break the encryption, eg. they've got the boss of Verisign in their back pocket.
No sig today...
However, that exemption is nullified if the source code is distributed to any of the countries on the U.S embargo list, such as Cuba, Iran or North Korea.
Huh. I didn't realize that Cuba, Iran, and North Korea didn't have any mathematicians or anyone else that is capable of developing their own cryptography. Or that other countries that do not have a problem with those particular countries do not have that expertise either. I guess the US has a monopoly on that talent. It's a good thing that the US Government is embargoing crypto. It worked great for nuclear bomb technology after all!
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Oh wow... Either /. searches and penalises for the letters f-i-r-s-t appearing in a primary post, or I just got bitchslapped at the speed of light.
I apologise.
Also, I should also mention the fact that legislation against encryption is ridiculously counter-productive; if the feds are after someone for any good reason, and that person is a criminal, they aren't going to respect such a restriction if they're already violating more serious laws. If all they succeed in doing is reducing legitimate commercial trade in such products, they're hurting themselves but at the same time improving the market tremendously for illicit dealers (note this observation applies to drugs as well, hmm).
Crypto just takes some smart folks to create it. I get the impression that the US Government doesn't believe that people outside its borders are capable of developing their own.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.