NSA's Backdoor Key from Lotus Notes (2002)

Re:NSA's Backdoor Key from Lotus Notes (2002) by acqq on Monday December 23, 2019 @07:29AM (#21863209)

> I'm not aware of any law it would have been violating if was encrypted in the US.

The laws as they were had exactly that effect: a lot of companies didn’t intend to have products sold solely in the US. And it was problematic enough that most companies avoided making a US-only version: even carrying such a product on a floppy disk while travelling outside of US could get you in trouble, see this article from 1995:

https://www.wired.com/1995/03/the-continuing-investigation-o...

The companies that did use strong crypto typically had the contracts with the military.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:NSA's Backdoor Key from Lotus Notes (2002) by nullc on Monday December 23, 2019 @09:30AM (#21863761)

Sorry, we're talking in loops. The legal issue wasn't encryption vs other cryptography, it was export or not. 7800 did face that issue, and resolved it by making the non-US version not do the crypto. This was probably easier in their case due to PAL vs NTSC. :)

I think both of us might be making the error of correcting something the other person wasn't intending to comment on! :)

Some export complications around crypto exist to this very day-- at least for commercial hardware products. I've had to fill out the export forms myself, and not that many years ago.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:NSA's Backdoor Key from Lotus Notes (2002) by acqq on Monday December 23, 2019 @10:19AM (#21864099)

> The legal issue wasn't encryption vs other cryptography, it was export or not

And I have never claimed anything else, it can be easily verified.

[ Parent | on HN ]