[WBEL-devel] export controls....

[John A. Tamplin]

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Rick Moran wrote:

> I think it would be easy to convey to a judge that there is no 
> reasonable way to restrict this content on the internet without
> the ability to absolutely determine the origin of the download request.
> Thus the only avenues available are:
> 
> 1. stop distributing the software
> 2. place the responsibility on the downloader to affirm that by 
>    downloading that they are not causing us to break the law.

Well, you could use ARIN/etc databases to determine the rough geographic 
location of the IP address blocks, and refuse any request from something 
not known to be safe.  However, that doesn't prevent a foreign national 
from either using a proxy on US/etc soil or dialing into a US ISP to do 
the download.  So, ultimately I think the options are either make it 
available for download with a warning or to block downloads until a more 
thorough personal verification is done.  Netscape originally required the 
latter when releasing 128-bit versions of their browser, which required a 
telephone number and an address, and they verified that was a US address 
and matched the phone number.  They stopped doing that and everyone else 
started using just the disclaimer, so I presume several lawyers think that 
is reasonable effort to prevent it.

-- 
John A. Tamplin					jat@jaet.org
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