The EXPORT CONTROL BILL 2002, Anderson notes, allows the government to proactively prohibit any "transfer of technology" between British people and dirty foreigners. "Technology" here means intangibles like encryption algorithms, and reverse-engineering techniques. "Transfer" here includes teaching or publishing in peer-reviewed journals. Or speaking loudly to people who might know foreigners. (Oh, and the government can also ban any talk of DSPs, spread spectrum devices, parallel programming and the crazy monkey magic inside 3D graphics cards that have a "three dimensional vector rate of over 3,000,000"). Those who remember when the only way of exporting crypto like PGP out of the US was by tattooing it onto your arm will recognise some of these provisions: nice to see us finally catching up.

Especially since the US relaxed those embarrassing crypto regulations last year, when it became obvious how flawed they were. Takes time for that sort of common-sense to leak out of any country though. Careless talk and all that.

Check this link for the lowdown:

 http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/exportbill.html
- shhh! parliament at work


From Ross:

The Export Control Bill, which is presently before Parliament, has serious implications for academic freedom. One of its goals is to extend export controls on armaments from physical goods to intangibles such as software. However, the powers are so widely drawn that they give ministers the power to review and suppress any scientific papers prior to publication. They also give ministers the power to license foreign students - not just at British universities, but students taught by British nationals anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, the debate on the Bill has been dominated by attempts, sponsored by NGOs such as Amnesty, to tighten the licensing regime still further. Academic freedom has not so far found a voice. I very much fear that the only effect of these well-meaning interventions will be to harm our domestic liberties. There is no evidence that our government's `ethical foreign policy' has made it harder for large arms makers to get the export licences they seek, and there is no reason to believe that things will get any harder for them once this bill is passed. However, there is every reason to fear that universities will be a scapegoat, and that the DTI will gleefully create an empire of officials to oversee our foreign students, our international collaborations and our publications.

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Not to be left out, the EU of course has its own answer to the USA's ever-popular Digital Millennium Copyright Act - THE EUROPEAN UNION COPYRIGHT DIRECTIVE. The former-Free-Sklyarov guys (now called "the Campaign for Digital Rights") are currently gathering a fellowship of dissenters to try and toss some of its more extreme sanctions back into Mount Doom, and are holding their first public planning meeting in Cambridge in a couple of weeks' time (Sat 2002-02-23). No confirmed venue so far, but that's because you haven't RSVPd yet (to  miniconf@uk.eurorights.org ) so they'll know how many people are coming. Full details will be in next week's issue, so if you're a reverse-engineer, an activist, a librarian, an ISP, or just generally concerned about the dark shroud of copy protection spreading across the once-carefree internet, then it should definitely be a fun day out.

Check:

 http://www.openrevolt.org/
- now comes with its very own DMCA-style "Takedown Clause"