Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!brl-adm!brl-smoke!smoke!abc@BRL.ARPA
From: abc@BRL.ARPA (Brint Cooper)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: [Montgomery Bob: Boris]
Message-ID: <1431@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 2-Mar-86 16:05:53 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1431
Posted: Sun Mar  2 16:05:53 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Mar-86 03:21:23 EST
Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA
Lines: 24



>   The authors of the Export Technology Act apparently did not forsee Russians 
>utilizing the DNN and public domain software, or commercially available
>US supercomputers or CAD facilities from remote sites within their country.
>As of yet we have discovered that the Commerce Department cannot prevent this,
>and we are waiting for a reply from the Director of the Office of Export 
>Technology qualifying his departments capability to handle such a situation.
>   If the FBI, Commerce Department, Export Technology Office, and NSA all 
>indicate that they are unprepared to handle such a situation, then I think
>that the appropriate thing to do is to forward discussion of this issue to the 
>Congressmen or Senators responsible for introducing  the Export Technology
>Act, notifying them of the impotence of their bill in a environment.

Why?  So that they can enact yet another meaningless, unenforcable piece
of legislation?  Perhaps the appropriate thing to do is examine the
means and pros and cons of trying to inhibit the international flow of
"public domain software" and "commmercially available" computers.  The
Russians are not the only ones to be hurt by such restrictions.

Where, for example, would our technology be had such restrictions been
placed on the transistor or the integrated circuit?

Brint