When Sun Microsystems struck a deal in May to begin selling strong encryption products worldwide, the news hit Uncle Sam like a Cold War boomer-ang. After all, there was the glaring irony - Sun had devised a way to bypass the US government's Evil Empire-era encryption export controls by joining forces with Elvis+, a Russian software firm staffed with refugees from the former Soviet space program.
Elvis+ software uses the SKIP encryption protocol with snoop-proof triple-DES and 128-bit ciphers. Both companies insist the software was developed independent of Sun. That fact allows them to ignore US export controls, which prohibit American firms from internationally selling strong crypto they've developed.
"The big question is whether any law was violated," says William Reinsch of the US export administration. "My immediate reaction is that it's not consistent with our policy. Am I happy with that? No."
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