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From: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid)
Newsgroups: net.crypt
Subject: Re: DES_PC posted to mod.sources, but canceled
Message-ID: <275@stracs.cs.strath.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 30-Sep-86 10:47:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: stracs.275
Posted: Tue Sep 30 10:47:02 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Oct-86 21:12:50 EDT
References: <240@mirror.UUCP> <1111@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid)
Organization: Department of Computer Science at Strathclyde University, UK.
Lines: 17

The US ban on the "export" of DES algorithms is absurd. A competent programmer
with access to the official standard (is that secret?) could write a DES
program in the language of his/her choice easily. Also, there are many non-US
sites who have the UNIX DES code from the good old days of V6 and V7. (It was
even on the 4.2 distribution tapes three years ago!) Finally, Andrew Tanenbaum
includes a Pascal version of DES in his book "Computer Networks". Are the
offending pages now ripped out? OK, you could get sued for copyright, but
it would be preferable to going to jail for treason! :-) How many other books
or papers contain the DES algorithm too?

		Jim

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