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Microcap & Penny Stocks : JAWS Technologies - NASDAQ (NM):JAWZ -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon Shanks who wrote (2006)	4/15/1999 12:44:00 AM
From: Glenn T	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3086

Does anyone know if this has any bearing on Jawz?? thanks in advance......boliman Wednesday April 14 7:50 PM ET Senators Introduce Bill To Ease Encryption Exports By Aaron Pressman WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation Wednesday to ease strict U.S. export controls on computer data scrambling technologies. The bill would slightly relax export controls on computer encryption products, which use mathematical formulas to scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software ''key.'' With the growth of electronic commerce and global communications over the Internet, encryption has become an increasingly critical tool for securing information and an important part of the high-tech marketplace. But U.S. law enforcement and national security agencies, fearing encryption will be used by criminals or terrorists to hide their nefarious activities, have pushed to maintain strict controls on the scrambling technology. The bill's backers said the legislation would create a more appropriate balance between the needs of law enforcement and the high-tech industry and privacy advocates that oppose export controls. John McCain, Arizona Republican and contender for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2000, said the bill would ''establish a credible procedure for making encryption export decisions, while providing a national security backstop to make certain that advanced encryption products do not fall into the wrong hands.'' The bill is also backed by Democrats Pat Leahy of Vermont and Ron Wyden of Oregon along with Republicans Conrad Burns of Montana and Spencer Abraham of Michigan. The Senate measure is considerably more tepid than a House bill backed by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte and California Democrat Zoe Lofgren. Under current rules, U.S. companies generally may not export products with software ''keys'' longer than 56-bits, while cutting edge encryption uses keys of 128-bits or more. Stronger products with longer key lengths are allowed to be exported to companies in a few industries like banking and health care. The strength of encryption is largely dependent on the length of the key. Hackers have cracked 56-bit messages in under a day while 128-bit keys are considered virtually uncrackable using existing techniques. The Senate bill introduced Wednesday would allow exports of 64 bits. the bill would allow stronger encryption exports to ''responsible entities and governments'' in Europe and certain other countries. Responsible entities would include publicly-traded companies, companies subject to government regulation or annually audited under widely accepted accounting principles, subsidiaries of U.S. companies and online merchants. Strategic partners of U.S. companies would also be included. The bill would also create a board largely made up of government officials that could further relax export limits. But the president could overrule the board's decisions on national security grounds. The House bill would allow exports of encryption products of any strength if similar products were available outside the United States from non-U.S. companies. Administration officials said they planned to study the Senate proposal but initial reactions were negative. ''Every administration, including this one, has opposed putting specific control levels on technology into law,'' Undersecretary of Commerce William Reinsch said in a statement. ''Doing so removes needed flexibility from the administration and it ultimately hurts industry because technology levels usually change faster than Congress can change a statute.'' Earlier Stories