Re: crypto in the kernel
christophe leroy (christophe.leroy5@capway.com)
Sun, 17 Jan 1999 18:36:07 MET
> xervavi Thomasz@hostmaster.org lio ro mailing-list i linux-kernel:
> > [ David Monniaux ]
> > > 3/ The person that proposed France should be cut from the Linux community
> > > has a tremendous sense of humour, since the author of ext2fs, Rémy Card,
> > > works in an university in Paris.
> >
> > I am very sorry for all linux developers and also all linux users in
> > France but the french government has officially considered the internet
> > as a threat to the french language and seems to be trying to minimize
> > internet use in France.
>
> You are both missing the point. Cutting France from the Linux community
> just can't work, whichever way you look at it, for the simple reason
> that Linux is freely available, and there are people living in France
> who will download it, use it and hack on it, no matter what. The fact
> that ext2 was originally written by Rémy Card doesn't have much to do
> with that. Whatever misguided policies the French govt may have about
> the internet and the French language have even less to do with it.
>
> If the US government ever gets back to its senses enough to allow the
> export of reasonable crypto, _and_ if the French one doesn't get enough
> of a clue to even allow the use of crypto, surely France is no reason to
> keep crypto off the Linux kernel, since the kernel is neither primarily
> maintained nor primarily distributed in France. In this scenario, what
> would no doubt happen is that volunteers in France would create special
> no-crypto distributions, while others would just go ahead and use
> standard Linux, while not making use of the crypto features.
>
Sorry but your are, dear compatriot, missing one point:
the downloading off a crypto engine is assimilated to its use, so it
is also illegal to download it. It means that, theorically nobody in
France will get the kernel with des inside. I know that it wont brake
individual users, but companies will expose themselves to trials if
they download DES kernel to create special no-crypto distrib, so it
has to be done outside France.
But once again I can't see why not have inside kernel something like
void des_encrypt(....)
{ return; }
And another patch, do replace this dummy des_encrypt()
> > Having the kernel support encryption (even the crippled 56Bit DES)
> > would be appreciated by many users and developers but would render linux
> > illegal because of the french encryption policy which is POLITIC.
>
> Exactly, but no-one outside of France needs to care much about that.
>
Not POLITIC, but a question of good sence and France interior
security !!! POLITIC has nothing to do with that.
For people who think that French government wants to spy on French
people, dont forget that 3DES is authorised (under conditions) inside
France
christophe
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/