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Arms Export Control Act Investigation: Pretty Good Privacy FTP Cryptography

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Rohit Pradhan

1) In 1991, Philip Zimmermann wrote and released the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, which implemented public-key cryptography and was widely downloaded over FTP. It later spread internationally over the Internet, though Zimmermann was not involved in distributing it outside the US. 2) After a licensing dispute report from RSA Security, the US Customs Service criminally investigated Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls by exporting cryptographic software without a license, as such software was regulated as munitions at the time. The 3-year investigation ended without charges in 1996. 3) Zimmermann then founded PGP Inc. and continued developing PGP software, which was later acquired by other companies that

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Arms Export Control Act Investigation: Pretty Good Privacy FTP Cryptography

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Rohit Pradhan
17 views1 page
1) In 1991, Philip Zimmermann wrote and released the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, which implemented public-key cryptography and was widely downloaded over FTP. It later spread internationally over the Internet, though Zimmermann was not involved in distributing it outside the US. 2) After a licensing dispute report from RSA Security, the US Customs Service criminally investigated Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls by exporting cryptographic software without a license, as such software was regulated as munitions at the time. The 3-year investigation ended without charges in 1996. 3) Zimmermann then founded PGP Inc. and continued developing PGP software, which was later acquired by other companies that

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1) In 1991, Philip Zimmermann wrote and released the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, which implemented public-key cryptography and was widely downloaded over FTP. It later spread internationally over the Internet, though Zimmermann was not involved in distributing it outside the US. 2) After a licensing dispute report from RSA Security, the US Customs Service criminally investigated Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls by exporting cryptographic software without a license, as such software was regulated as munitions at the time. The 3-year investigation ended without charges in 1996. 3) Zimmermann then founded PGP Inc. and continued developing PGP software, which was later acquired by other companies that

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17 views1 page

Arms Export Control Act Investigation: Pretty Good Privacy FTP Cryptography

Uploaded by

Rohit Pradhan
1) In 1991, Philip Zimmermann wrote and released the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, which implemented public-key cryptography and was widely downloaded over FTP. It later spread internationally over the Internet, though Zimmermann was not involved in distributing it outside the US. 2) After a licensing dispute report from RSA Security, the US Customs Service criminally investigated Zimmermann for allegedly violating arms export controls by exporting cryptographic software without a license, as such software was regulated as munitions at the time. The 3-year investigation ended without charges in 1996. 3) Zimmermann then founded PGP Inc. and continued developing PGP software, which was later acquired by other companies that

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In 1991, he wrote the popular Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) program, and made it available

(together with its source code) through public FTP for download, the first widely available
program implementing public-key cryptography. Shortly thereafter, it became available overseas
via the Internet, though Zimmermann has said he had no part in its distribution outside the United
States.
In 1995, he published a book "PGP Source Code and Internals", as a way to bypass limitation of
exporting digital code. The book contains source code to a software package called PGP[4]
The very first version of PGP included an encryption algorithm, BassOmatic, developed by
Zimmermann.[5]

Arms Export Control Act investigation[edit]


After a report from RSA Security, who were in a licensing dispute with regard to the use of the
RSA algorithm in PGP, the United States Customs Service started a criminal investigation of
Zimmermann, for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act.[6] The United States
Government had long regarded cryptographic software as a munition, and thus subject to arms
trafficking export controls. At that time, PGP was considered to be impermissible ("high-
strength") for export from the United States. The maximum strength allowed for legal export has
since been raised and now allows PGP to be exported. The investigation lasted three years, but
was finally dropped without filing charges.
After the government dropped its case without indictment in early 1996, Zimmermann founded
PGP Inc. and released an updated version of PGP and some additional related products. That
company was acquired by Network Associates (NAI) in December 1997, and Zimmermann
stayed on for three years as a Senior Fellow. NAI decided to drop the product line and in 2002,
PGP was acquired from NAI by a new company called PGP Corporation. Zimmermann served as
a special advisor and consultant to that firm until Symantec acquired PGP Corporation in 2010.
[2]
 Zimmermann is also a fellow at the Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. He
was a principal designer of the cryptographic key agreement protocol (the "association model")
for the Wireless USB standard.

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