David Fetter wrote:
>> As for the suggestion that we should put other crypto functions into
>> the core, AIUI the reason not to is not to avoid problems with US
>> Export Regulations (after all, we've shipped source tarballs with
>> it for many years, including from US repositories), but to make it
>> easier to use Postgres in places where use of crypto is illegal.
>>
>
> To date, I have not found an example of such a place. For the record,
> would you or anyone seeing this be so kind as to provide one, along
> with some kind of evidence that somewhere, such a law has actually
> been enforced?
>
There are significant controls in a number of countries. See
<http://rechten.uvt.nl/koops/cryptolaw/cls-sum.htm>.
I am not going to do more research on this - I have better things to do
with my time. The point has been made elsewhere that including general
crypto in core is entirely unnecessary for any purpose we know of. That
along with knowledge that its use is at least restricted in several
countries should surely be argument enough.
This comes up often enough that I'm almost wondering if it deserves an
FAQ entry.
cheers
andrew