Industry groups say a proposed change to US encryption regulations doesn_t go far enough.
Published:
26 November 1999 y., Friday
The Clinton administration_s draft rules released Tuesday would relax current restrictions on the overseas shipments of data-scrambling products, but controls would still remain. «Instead of a clean lifting of export restrictions, we have a complicated morass of regulations,» said Ed Gillespie, director of Americans for Computer Privacy. «Today_s draft falls short of what was promised on 16 September when the Administration said that the new the regulations would shift the current process from an antiquated licensing scheme to a realistic reporting scheme,» the Business Software Alliance said.
Public comments are due by 6 December, and the Commerce Department has pledged to publish the final regulations by 15 December. Violators can be punished with prison sentences and fines. The proposal says: «You may export and re-export to any end-user retail encryption commodities, software and components... Encryption products exported under this paragraph can be used to provide products and services to any end-user.» But it_s unclear what the term «retail» product covers. White House officials hope the rules, outlined in September, will satisfy tech firms, which have long argued that President Clinton_s executive order restricting the export of strong encryption hurts US competitiveness. With the help of top House Republicans, business groups have waged a fierce lobbying campaign to pass a law relaxing export controls and had hoped for a vote on the floor of the House this fall. US law enforcement officials have opposed the wide distribution of encryption products, and the FBI once sought to make it a crime for Americans to sell them domestically.
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
Software company announced new structure_ of it_s business.
more »
As the 108th Congress scrambles in its final days to address homeland security issues, U.S. Reps. Mac Thornberry and Zoe Lofgren are focusing on the state of U.S. cybersecurity
more »
Security firms are warning of a new series of Sdbot worms that install a "sniffer" component to steal passwords from unsuspecting users
more »
Microsoft's undeclared patent claims on Sender ID technology is holding up adoption of the e-mail authentication specification
more »
search.lt presents newest links
more »
Microsoft has been granted a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on a process known as tabbing through a Web page in order to find links
more »
search.lt presents newest links
more »
UzJilSberBank (Uzbek housing construction bank) completed a project of introduction of plastic cards at Almalyk Mining and Smelting Combine
more »
Recent decisions suggest that U.S. courts are more likely to protect an online database if the work involved was tilted towards the compilation of data itself as opposed to the technology used to gather it
more »
Touch-screen machines brought in to replace the punch-card ballots at the center of the 2000 presidential fiasco appeared to work smoothly in primary voting Tuesday
more »
Shruggle virus could be 'a taste of things to come', warn experts
more »