Non-ATT 'crypt(3)'

[Alex Osadzinski]

This week's Datalink (a UK weekly computer rag) reports that the British
Defence Ministry (MoD) is adopting UNIX System V. However, it intends to
produce a highly secure variant, doubtless for its own nefarious purposes.

The nicest thing about the article is a quote from a spokesperson saying how
pleasant it will be to take the sanitised UNIX code that we get in Europe and
make it infinitely more secure than the original item.

Seriously, this business of removing the decryption code from international
versions of UNIX Systems is a pain in the rectum for everybody. We have
similar problems with the encryption chips being removed from, say, automatic
teller machines when they're shipped here. The "definitive" advice that we've
received from corporate lawyers is that it is legal to add the code back in,
even from an old version of the UNIX System. Further, any competent programmer
can reproduce the crypt(3) code in an afternoon from a functional description.

Such is life.

Alex Osadzinski, Unix Europe Ltd, London, England
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