Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Path: utzoo!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!ucbvax!info-law
From: monty@UAB.CSNET (Montgomery Bob)
Newsgroups: mod.legal
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8602272006.AA12620@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 26-Feb-86 17:07:42 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8602272006.AA12620
Posted: Wed Feb 26 17:07:42 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 01:11:08 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 41
Approved: info-law@brl.arpa

To: Geoff@SRI-CSL
Subject: INFO-LAW, Technology export and telecommunication


    I am not a subscriber to INFO-LAW, so I don't know if this has been
brought up previously or is currently being discussed;

    After watching NBC news coverage of Gorbachev's address to the XXVII
party congress in Moscow, during which he stressed the importance of
computers in the future of the USSR, the wheels got to turning-

    Given that the technology export act prohibits the export of certian
items of high technology outside of the US because they might compromise
national security or otherwise harm national interests, what is to prevent
the use of US based computers which are covered by the export act from
executing foreign supplied applications and exporting the results back
outside the US? To the best of our efforts thusfar, talking with a represen-
tatives of the commerce department and the export technology office, we
have determined that it is perfectly legal, for example, to purchase a
supercomputer, place it somewhere in the US, and establish high bandwidth
satellite links to a front end, say, in Kiev. I understand that such a
link exists already between a Cray supercomputer at Livermore labs and 
a site somewhere in the USSR. Futher local discussion revealed that the
issue of foreign nationals utilizing machines located at federally funded
supercomputer sites is already a hot issue, with the US contingent pushing
for open access. Is there in fact a legal "loophole" which violates the
spirit of the export technology act? 


P.S. If you submit this to INFO-LAW,
     please add me to the subscription           Bob Montgomery
     list so I can see the reply(s).             Univ. of Ala/B'ham C&IS

arpanet: monty%uab@csnet-relay.arpa
  csnet: monty@uab
   uucp: {sb2...sb6,akgua}!sb1!scbhq!uab!monty
  phone: (205) 934-2213
 usmail: 115a Campbell Hall, 1300 University Boulevard, Birmingham, Al 35294

     "The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do
      not in any way represent those of the University of Alabama"