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A comment on A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss. Parent comment

Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by gpm on Thursday January 31, 2019 @09:47AM (#19045027)
I propose a game, given a list, find a way that each item is not like the others:

- Kidnapping - It's the only action.

- Explosives - It's the only thing that is illegal to make.

- African Militias - It's the only one about using people.

- Unbreakable Encryption - It's the only thing that is used by regular people on a regular basis.

- Missile Guidance Systems - It's the only thing that's not unique.

- Private jets full of gold - It's the only thing most people would trade an arm and a leg for.

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Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by stackola on Thursday January 31, 2019 @01:56PM (#19047600)
> It's the only thing that's not unique.

I see you get one joker in your game.

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Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by thecatspaw on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:13AM (#19045233)
> Explosives - It's the only thing that is illegal to make.

doesnt the US restrict import/export of encryption over a certain keylength as well?

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Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by gpm on Thursday January 31, 2019 @10:20AM (#19045319)
Uh, I don't think so? Pretty sure they either gave up, decided it was unconstitutional, or both.

Either way, "make", not "export". I'm almost certain it's illegal to export missile guidance systems under ITAR.

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Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by jpdb on Thursday January 31, 2019 @11:00AM (#19045662)
> Uh, I don't think so? Pretty sure they either gave up, decided it was unconstitutional, or both.

I think it's technically still a law that's on the books and the American federal government did try to claim PGP was "munitions" at one point in the 90's, but the feds were skirted by PGP being printed in a book which is protected by the 1st amendment.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...

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Re:A Coder Who Became a Crime Boss by vkou on Thursday January 31, 2019 @01:43PM (#19047477)
Explosives aren't necessarily illegal to make.

Missile guidance systems would probably be illegal to export, though. (You'd have to declare the gold.)

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