Digital encryption in the US
Doghouse – Encryption
Privacy, commerce, and even politics have influenced, and been influenced by, the issue of data encryption.
At Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the mid 1980s, I was directly involved with an issue of Unix systems having encryption code embedded in the operating system.
This was threatening to block the second release of our operating system, Ultrix, to many foreign countries, including (believe it or not) Great Britain. After all, we did have a couple of skirmishes with England, one in 1776 and another in 1812 – but I thought we had kissed and made up by 1986.
DEC's export department asked the question "Does Ultrix have encryption?" and our engineering group truthfully answered "yes." So our export department told us we couldn't ship to a wide variety of countries. Of course, we didn't mention that all of AT&T's Unix System V and Berkeley's BSD Unix also shipped encryption, all over the world.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Debian Unleashes Debian Libre Live
Debian Libre Live keeps your machine free of proprietary software.
-
Valve Announces Pending Release of Steam Machine
Shout it to the heavens: Steam Machine, powered by Linux, is set to arrive in 2026.
-
Happy Birthday, ADMIN Magazine!
ADMIN is celebrating its 15th anniversary with issue #90.
-
Another Linux Malware Discovered
Russian hackers use Hyper-V to hide malware within Linux virtual machines.
-
TUXEDO Computers Announces a New InfinityBook
TUXEDO Computers is at it again with a new InfinityBook that will meet your professional and gaming needs.
-
SUSE Dives into the Agentic AI Pool
SUSE becomes the first open source company to adopt agentic AI with SUSE Enterprise Linux 16.
-
Linux Now Runs Most Windows Games
The latest data shows that nearly 90 percent of Windows games can be played on Linux.
-
Fedora 43 Has Finally Landed
The Fedora Linux developers have announced their latest release, Fedora 43.
-
KDE Unleashes Plasma 6.5
The Plasma 6.5 desktop environment is now available with new features, improvements, and the usual bug fixes.
-
Xubuntu Site Possibly Hacked
It appears that the Xubuntu site was hacked and briefly served up a malicious ZIP file from its download page.