Mozilla Firefox Not In Violation of US Export Rules 127
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.'"
It means they found a back door... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or some way to break the encryption, eg. they've got the boss of Verisign in their back pocket.
So, according to our Government ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Oblig xkcd... (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
It is quite sad to note.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig xkcd... (Score:3, Insightful)
About the XKCD... munitions yeah, but do you think it's the sort of munitions they'd let you have? The military already got a lot of neat stuff you don't get to play with.
It's not just "free speech,"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So, according to our Government ... (Score:2, Insightful)
The mods are kinda stupid.
Paradox (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to push that open source projects, developed with the cooperation from people from all countries are not restricted to the laws of a single country, thats ok, no need to put a country-specific 1st amendment to justify it. Else the exporting crypto restrictions could be applied but was made an exception in hat case.
Re:Oblig xkcd... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It means they found a back door... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's this thing called a "man in the middle attack" - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack [wikipedia.org]
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Re:this has been known for years (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig xkcd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oblig xkcd... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know I'm taking that cartoon way too seriously, but what the hell. The 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee people to right to export arms from the US. :-) US citizens already have the ability to 'keep and bear crypto', WITHIN the US.