Strategic export controls: The impact on Cryptography

Abstract

In July 1998, in response to recommendations by Sir Richard Scott in his Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defence Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions, the Department of Trade and Industry published a White Paper on Strategic Export Controls. One of the proposals in the White Paper is that existing controls on the export of goods should be extended to control the publication or export of information. This proposal is presented as arising from the Government's “need to ensure that its strategic export control powers are brought up-to-date to enable it to deal with modern means of trading, such as transferring information via the Internet”. The extension of control over the export of goods to control over the publication and communication of information is much more radical in its effect than its presentation suggests. This paper examines one important controlled technology, cryptography, and the impact of extending the existing control in the way proposed by the White Paper