I hate to help the buzzard out on this, but for a while, source code for encryption algorythms was considered a munition by the U.S. government for the purpose of export.
The commerce department was
-export-a-crypto-system-sig -RSA-3-lines-PERL
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)
The above 3 lines of code is a perl program which implements RSA encryption and decryption, and is small enough to use as a signature file. Peter Junger, a law professor in the US, obtained from the US Commerce department a written statement ruling that this program must not be exported from the US.
Yes, boys and girls, the U.S. government is stupid enough to actually put that kind of lunacy in writing.
Interestingly, this restriction of theirs was only for electronic transmissions. If you were to put the exact same text and mail it to a friend in Britain, it would be perfectly legal, but if you were to send it in an email, you'd have committed a felony. WooHoo!
Phil Zimmerman, the original author of PGP, a high quality encryption program that became relatively popular at the time was hasseled for several years because the source code, (or binaries for that matter), was exported by someone. Of course the algorythms at issue were publicly known, but it was apparently FedGov's contention that them dumb assed ferriners would never be able to actually write a program that could make use of the mathematics of public-key cryptography.
Later editions of PGP were printed in books in an OCR-friendly format and were exported to europe where they were promptly scanned and compiled by other freedom loving folk who think that privacy in their communications is a Good Thingtm.
Of course, the buzzard will claim that these efforts were illegal or immoral or both, but the fact is, in a country where freedom of speech is important, (or is at least supposed to be), ideas cannot easily or effectively be suppressed.
OK, I stand corrected.
Interestingly, this restriction of theirs was only for electronic transmissions. If you were to put the exact same text and mail it to a friend in Britain, it would be perfectly legal, but if you were to send it in an email, you'd have committed a felony. WooHoo!
That's the part I can't figure out. How can electronic transmission be illegal, but printing it out on real paper and sending it via mail be legal?
Did they think that foreigners were unable to fat-finger source code into a computer? Hell, I did that all the time with Computer Gazette. C64 RULZ D00DZ!