Legality of Encryption...

[PsypherPunk]

i've just started playing with GnuPG and came across a reference that said certain 'levels' of encryption are illegal in some countries. i've tried Googling for the UK laws surrounding this but the best i can get are some news articles, several years old now just discussing the matter. Anyone know how the law stands in the UK? Or could point me in the direction of somewhere that holds the official stance?

[scientica]

Without really knowing I think this is the case:
iirc the Land of the American Dream (tm)(r)(OrSomething) got restrictions on the encryption algorithms, ie if you send an email with sources for an encryption scheme stronger than X bits you might get an "offer you cant resist" from the feds/cia/nsa or one of the other lesser know security agencies.
I don't think other contries got these kinds of restrictions, but I guess all this Terrorism and CTL's (Counter Terrorist Laws, hmm... wonder if it's worth making a CS spook, CL (Counter Law) :P ) might have made more countries all of a sudden realize that encryption isn't something their own security agencies have monopoly on.

It might be that only some contries are infected with this code-ban/code-freze (eg "the axes of terrorism", "non democratic thingies with non democratic religion"[irony,sarcasm and a pinch of exaduration, see page 42 in "the Satirists Coobok, 3rd edition"]), so eg, I could imagine "allies" maybe have the code, foe's not...