Bill Sommerfeld writes: > As the next IETF meeting will be in Paris, and France has had something > a reputation for placing strict controls on the use of cryptography, I > took a look.. > > (This is, of course, a matter of potential concern to those of us who > carry laptops with encryption software for personal use to every IETF > meeting...) > > It appears that France may have recently substantially liberalized its > regulation of cryptography. A site at: > > http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/cryptolaw/cls2.htm#fr > > has what claims to be a summary. There appears to be a personal use > exemption of some sort but there's no mention of re-export of the laptop > you imported when you entered the country.. The legislation on cryptography in France is vast and complicated; I believe it still holds the record for severity of restrictions in the developed world. However, the laws have been greatly liberalized in recent years, and those laws that remain seem to be quite loosely enforced. In theory, from what I've been able to distill of the existing legislation, you're supposed to declare exportation of any type of crypto software, and unrestricted crypto applies only to effective key lengths of 128 bits or less. In practice, I don't know if any of this is enforced for individuals travelling on business or for other reasons, since almost everyone with any kind of PC today has some sort of encryption software on the PC. > I'm not particularly worried as most of these laws are rarely enforced > in other countries. Anyone have a better idea? They appear to be rarely enforced in France as well. France has traditionally been powerfully influenced by the strong lobbying of military and spook agencies, both of whom predictably believe that nobody shold have crypto but them. Even so, the country has very gradually come to realize that the information infrastructure of the nation is impossible to keep secure without widespread and unrestricted use of crypto, and I think this realization, plus the embarrassment of having draconian legislation while other industrialized nations have long ago seen the light, has encouraged the considerable liberalization of the law and the very light enforcement of what remains. So in summary, you shouldn't have anything to worry about, but I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf