"The administration has taken a step forward and presented us with the outline for real reform on encryption, but have fallen short on the promises they made in September," said Alan Davidson, senior policy analyst with the pro-consumer thinktank Center for Democracy and Technology. "There is a lot of work still to be done before these regulations are finalized."
Under current encryption rules, most products containing "strong" encryption - which protects valuable data with hard-to-break codes and is useful for e-commerce - have to be approved by the government to be exported abroad.
In September, the Clinton Administration seemingly backed off its hardline stance, and bowed to the tech industry's and consumer group's demands for more lenient encryption export regulations. Now, the Administration's position seems less conciliatory than first thought.
The draft, released Tuesday, "falls short of what was promised ... when the Administration said that the new regulations would shift the current process from an antiquated licensing scheme to a realistic reporting scheme," said Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), in a Tuesday statement.
Give and take
"The administration has essentially given with one hand and taken away with the other," he said. "They have given us an outlines of real reform that would free up retail products for export regardless of their key lengths or the algorithm that is used - and that would be a major step forward."
"Unfortunately, the rules that they are drafting now appears to make it difficult for people to export encrytion widely through standard mass market channels," he added, "which means it will remain difficult for consumers to get access to encryption products."
December 15 deadline approaching
Still, insiders are asking, can almost a decade of encryption policy be changed in less than a month? The industry can only wait and see.
The CDT's Davidson believes that the proposed rules could act as a good guideline to real reform, however.
The draft proposal comes 22 days before the promised December 15 deadline for the final regulations. Without even a month left, the BSA pledged to keep up negotiations with the Administration.
