re what would happen if export restrictions violated in c rt bc chinet chi il us schneier chinet chi il us bruce schneier writes in article apr yuma acns colostate edu holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes ok i heard a lot of talk about the nsa s infamous control over encryption export through the itar here s a question say i develop this great new encryption system and i want to sell my software worldwide the thought police then come in and say this algorithm is a threat to national security you will not be permitted to export it at this point what kind of trouble could i get into if i ignored the itar and sold my program to international customers anyway doug holland you would be arrested as an international arms trafficker there are several things in itar which have never been tested in court the concensus appears to be you could be arrested as an international arms trafficker you could regardless of the state of the law but there are some paragraphs which suggest you would be violating the law if it goes to court the itars could be thrown out is incompatible with the first amendment or the court could rule that software is technical data not subject to the itars or the court could rule that the phrase publicly available as defined in the itars would apply making it only subject to requiring a general export license or you could be prosecuted successfully for arms trafficing or espionage general concensus among lawyers who have read the itars is that one of the first two would occur arthur l rubin a rubin dsg dse beckman com work beckman instruments brea mcimail com compuserve com arthur pnet cts com personal my opinions are my own and do not represent those of my employer
