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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 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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