Subject: Re: Legality of IETF meetings in PRC. Was: Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning a future meeting of the IETF

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 17:03:08 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>

    > For the PRC we've been told (in black and white as part of a legal
    > document - not as anecdotal information) that a) certain acts and
    > topics of discussion are forbidden by law or contract ...
    > ...
    > With respect to ... any of our hosts in the past, show me the contract
    > language, laws, or other indication where things normally discussed or
    > designed at an IETF would be considered illegal.

Interesting point. I can recall a number of countries with _export_
restrictions on some things, and perhaps one with a _use_ restriction, but I
can't think of one where "discuss[ion] or design[ing]" anything would have
been prohibited. Did I too miss one?

	Noel

---

From: "HUANG, ZHIHUI (JERRY), ATTLABS" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 17:30:06 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Noel Chiappa
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 4:03 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Legality of IETF meetings in PRC. Was: Re: Request for
communityguidance on issue concerning a future meeting of the IETF

>	Noel
 
Since people mostly use crypto technology as a straw-man for something
they think it is illegal to discuss in China, I googled "Cryptography
Conference China" which yields at least the following:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2IrIh6sYl8cC&dq=cryptography+conference
+china&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=-FSbcy9jzf&sig=PycGmAPHcpqrTzDL
79R1pERBFmM&hl=en&ei=PKfPSo72HZOoNv3YhfEE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&
resnum=4&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false, proceedings of the 5th
International Conference, Applied Cryptography and Network Security
(2007)

http://books.google.com/books?id=k9g8nEfe7fcC&dq=cryptography+conference
+china&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=RyB0ytWPpo&sig=JBHhOhIkMRgkRsN5
P2IjFK_n88I&hl=en&ei=PKfPSo72HZOoNv3YhfEE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&
resnum=7&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=&f=false, proceedings of the 10th
International Conference on Practice and Theory in Public Key
Cryptography, Beijing, China, April 2007

It is probably safe to say that it is not illegal to discuss
cryptography in China. 

Googling "firewall security conference china" yields at least the
following:
http://sites.google.com/site/asergrp/projects/policy which contains
further a list of publications and conferences held in China (Shanghai
and Beijing), some IEEE/IFIP, for example, 1st IEEE international
workshop on security in software engineering held in Beijing in 2007. 

It is probably also safe to say that it is not illegal to discuss
firewall, software security in China.

Thanks,
Jerry
--
Jerry Huang, AT&T Labs, +1 630 810 7679 (+1 630 719 4389, soon)
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https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:40:57 -0400

--On Friday, October 09, 2009 17:03 -0400 Noel Chiappa
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> Interesting point. I can recall a number of countries with
> _export_ restrictions on some things, and perhaps one with a
> _use_ restriction, but I can't think of one where
> "discuss[ion] or design[ing]" anything would have been
> prohibited. Did I too miss one?

Noel, I don't think it moves the discussion forward one way or
the other, but I can certainly remember times in the US in which
discussions of certain types of cryptographic topics with
foreign nationals present was treated as export of cryptographic
technology and subject to all sorts of restrictions as a result.
It may have been an export restriction rather than a discussion
restriction, but the practical difference was zero.   You could
quite properly and correctly respond that there was a lot of
resistance from the relevant communities and that the period of
prior restraint on papers to be presented at such meetings
didn't last very long, but it did occur.

Similarly, if one assumed that I had learned enough as an
undergraduate and from the public literature (i.e., without
depending on any security clearances or other special access) to
have a fairly good idea how to build a nuclear weapon and what
the key parameters are, I think I would still be violating US
law to stand up in a public meeting and describe how to do it.
Certainly that would have been the case some years ago; I
haven't spent a lot of time (or any time at all) tracking the
evolution of law and regulations in that area.

I think the Chinese situation is different, largely because of
the meeting cancellation and hotel discretionary provisions
(and, since Ole and others have told us several times that the
IAOC is working on a different plan in those areas, I'm trying
to sit quietly until I see what that process comes up with).
Certainly different governments are going to be sensitive about
different things (and fewer or more of them).  But I don't think
it helps to exaggerate the differences by suggesting that there
are no restrictions on discussion of sensitive topics anywhere
else in the world.

best,
   john