Can a math professor make a simple encryption program freely available online? Daniel Bernstein, professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been in court since 1995 trying to find out. At time he filed his suit, sharing encryption software online was prohibited as a form of "exporting munitions". While the rules have relaxed in the meantime, Bernstein never got his vindication. Yesterday a federal court threw out his suit when the Bush administration said that it would not use the law to punish "legitimate research".
(PS: This is how the Felten case ended. The bad law is still on the books, and the only direct challenge to it has been quashed. This kind of resolution is tidy for prosecutors but not for potential defendants. It's still uncertain whether researchers specializing in cryptography or computer security have a First Amendment right to publish the results of their research. And until this uncertainty is removed, researchers will be chilled in exercising their First Amendment rights. This kind of ruling shifts the modus operandi from the government censorship of science to the self-censorship of scientists.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/16/2003 11:51:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
