Software for your Silicon
Modern techniques used by cryptographic software to protect your identity and the integrity of your data are good. So good, in fact, that governments realize that their security organizations cannot monitor the actions and transactions of citizens who use cryptography. This is because cryptography is a two-edged sword: honest people will use it to protect sensitive and private communications, dishonest citizens will use it to circumvent the laws regarding the transfer of monies, the solicitation of the underaged, and just about every other possible transgression it's possible to do. Banning cryptography, or mandating weak software that the government can monitor, will do nothing at all: the dishonest will continue to use illegal means to ply their trade (such as extortion, bribery, murder, and banned software) and the honest will have lost a powerful tool in the arsenal of intellectual sharing. (Outlawing cryptography will be about as successful as your country's ban on certain drugs, slavery, etc.)
Governments have tried bizarre tactics to slow or stop the spread of cryptography. Besides making them look stupid, resulting in bad press world-wide, it only makes cryptography a "forbidden fruit", and more alluring to the average computer user. (Even trying to enforce a ban is a two-edged sword.) It's hard to imagine that large criminal organizations weren't among the first to adopt cryptographic software.
Us versus Them
These tactics - and similar strange behavior surrounding the awarding of patents for cryptographic work - has resulted in the classification of cryptographic software as "munitions" by the U.S. Government (right up there with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons). These policies, which I'm convinced were lifted from MAD Magazine's "Spy versus Spy" comic strip, has created two classes of humans:
American and Canadian citizens and holders of American permanent residency cards (also known as "green cards") [known in true paranoid fashion as Us]: you are able to obtain all cryptographic software with the agreement that you won't "export" it to
Everyone else on Planet Earth not in the first category (known as foreigners, or Them) : you cannot obtain cryptographic software written by "Us", because we can't "export" it to you.
The term "export" - as it's been explained to me - means any intentional action that results in the transfer of export-controlled items to persons in the second category. This probably includes actions that intend to cause an export to take place, whether or not it succeeds (such as mailing export-controlled cryptographic software to a foreigner with an America On-Line account (you would be sending it only to AOL's main computer in Virginia, the other party would be retrieving it)). Whether or not it includes unintentional actions is a matter for God and the U.S. Attorney's office (and on a bad day it's hard to tell the latter that they're not the former).
All that having been said, here are some pointers to cryptographic software on the Internet:
Us (Americans, Canadians, "Green Card" holders)
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, is the official release vehicle for export-controlled cryptographic software to "us". (Thank you MIT, for shouldering the bureaucrating and legal burden of this task. It really is appreciated.) Use one of the following:
I've removed the links I used to have here because (1) it became a bother to follow the shifting sands of the real world and (2) your favorite search engine does nearly as good a job.
Them (Foreigners)
I've removed the links I used to have here because (1) it became a bother to follow the shifting sands of the real world and (2) your favorite search engine does nearly as good a job.
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