Re: [Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Stéphane Ducasse]

What I do not like is that people say " group but they keep kicking me out of 
their mailing list ” when this is absolutely not true!

We can discuss and can argue even violently but we do not lie. 

S. 



> On 31 May 2020, at 19:38, Bruce O'Neel  wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> So addressing only the crypto software issue and with the caveat that I am 
> also not a lawyer but I have had to deal with certain aspects of this in the 
> past
> 
> Crypto software is one of those bizarre dual use items in terms of arms 
> imports and exports.  While we as geeks just think of this is software or 
> mathematics and might be confused as to why governments care, governments do 
> care deeply about this.  And their way of expressing how much they care about 
> this issue is by passing laws and prosecuting folks.
> 
> One of the easiest ways to get in trouble is for one to make the software 
> available to residents and/or citizens of certain countries as well as 
> available to people on a long list kept by different governments.  We can 
> have a long debate about the morality of this concept but those who make the 
> laws have decided that is the law.  And often these laws are crafted such 
> that the executive can change important details on short notice and that puts 
> the risk of prosecution at the whims of different world leaders.  
> 
> The license that the software is released under is not important.   
> 
> What Ron is stating is that squeak source supplied some additional 
> protections to prevent accidentally making the software available to folks 
> who the US feels should not have access.
> 
> If you have moved the software to another hosting provider without the 
> permission or knowledge of the author, and therefore the owner of the 
> software, you have put that person at additional risk.  In addition you and 
> the hosting provider are taking on additional risk.
> 
> If it was moved to GitHub I strongly recommend reviewing their policies on 
> trade controls and what risks you assume.
> 
> https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls 
> 
> 
> Finally I would strongly recommend talking to a competent legal advisor who 
> is deeply familiar with the details of these laws.  They are complex and 
> highly variable between different parts of the world.
> 
> I know this seems like a lot of trouble and wasted time but you can spend a 
> giant amount of time and money defending oneself from arms trafficking 
> charges.
> 
> cheers
> 
> bruce
> 
> 30 May 2020 14:43 Stéphane Ducasse  wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> This is the week-end and we worked super well yesterday during the sprint. 
> Lot of good enhancements - Thanks a lot to all the participants. 
> I not really happy to be forced to do it on a sunny saturday but I’m doing it 
> to clarify points.
> 
> Esteban sent me this text that was posted on Squeak-Dev (I personally do not 
> read squeak related forums because 
> I have not the time and my focus is Pharo, its consortium, my team, my 
> research and my family). 
> 
> We have to react because 
> - We do not really at ***all** understand this email
> - We did not kicked anybody from our mailing-list from ages - so ron is 
> lying. In the past we even had discussion with ron - so we do not 
> really understand. May be we got problem to log on our mailing-lists. 
> We have no idea because we are working and not looking at such things.   
> - When we migrated smalltalkhub to readonly we payed attention to make sure 
> that private projects stay private.
> We did not migrated smalltalkhub for fun. We MUST do it or it will be done by 
> our infrastructure!
> - Now the cryptography packages are MIT and they are public anyway. So again 
> we do not understand anything. 
> 
> We do not get why Ron contacted us because we announced the migration 
> publicly way in advance and we will keep 
> the Smalltalkhub frozen repo for at least next 5 years. 
> 
> I feel really sorry to hear such kind of email because we do not want to 
> fight with anybody. 
> Our goal is to make sure that people can work with Pharo and expand their 
> business and knowledge. 
> We are working hard to make sure that people can invent their future with 
> Pharo and people that know us personally 
> know that we are not lying.
> 
> S
> 
> 
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I've tried to work with the Pharo group but they keep kicking me out of 
>> their mailing list.  I've already mentioned this a number of times to the 
>> Pharo group but nobody seems to care.  
>> 
>> BOLD BOLD BOLD PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY  BOLD BOLD BOLD
>> 
>> I am not a lawyer but we used very good lawyers to make the squeaksource 
>> repository a safe place to do cryptography work.  If you are working on 
>> cryptography DO NOT POST your code anywhere except squeaksource.  Especially 
>> if you are in the USA.  The ONLY repository that is approved to host our 
>> cryptography code in the 

Re: [Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Sven Van Caekenberghe]

> On 1 Jun 2020, at 06:39, Jerry Kott  wrote:
> 
> If you read the text of the EAR and take into account all other facts, I 
> think that the notion that anyone should get into trouble by copying open 
> source Smalltalk crypto libraries to other repositories is just a pure FUD. 
> This software is open source, it is publicly available including the source 
> code, it is hosted on a domain that is controlled by a non-US entity, and 
> it’s easily accessible in its current form from countries that are currently 
> on the US ‘vorboten’ list.

Indeed.

Re: [Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Jerry Kott]

Hi all,

as Bruce said, regulations around cryptography exports from the US are complex, 
and controversial. I am afraid that this thread has the potential to confuse 
the Smalltalk community, and it raises more questions than gives answers (which 
is fine but where do we go from here?)

I am also not a lawyer, also have dealt with this issue before (on several 
occasions), and every single time the conversation turns into personal opinions 
and (almost always) corporate lawyering that will follow a CYA route without 
properly researching the facts. I hope to provide some information that might 
clarify this a bit to the best of my understanding.

Cryptography Exports from the US is best described here:

https://bis.doc.gov/index.php/encryption-and-export-administration-regulations-ear
 


This link will be most relevant to open source software:
https://bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption/1-encryption-items-not-subject-to-the-ear
 


The previously cited link at Github 
(https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls 
) is 
only partially relevant here, and it’s really important if you want to use the 
Github Enterprise Server to host your repositories.

The http://www.squeaksource.com/Cryptography/ 
 resource is not blocked for access 
from export-controlled countries (easily verifiable by using a combination of 
VPN, Tor and proxychains).

The Squeaksource repository acknowledges on the home page the hosting support 
provided by the Software Composition Group and University of Bern, based in 
Switzerland. While the IP of the service itself appears to be in the US state 
of Texas, WHOIS on the domain reveals that the registrar is 
http://www.hetzner.com/  which appears to be hosted in 
Bavaria, Germany. This means that if tomorrow the owner of the domain decides 
to change the DNS records and host it in another jurisdiction instead, there is 
no one who can stop them.

The rest is my personal opinion:

If you read the text of the EAR and take into account all other facts, I think 
that the notion that anyone should get into trouble by copying open source 
Smalltalk crypto libraries to other repositories is just a pure FUD. This 
software is open source, it is publicly available including the source code, it 
is hosted on a domain that is controlled by a non-US entity, and it’s easily 
accessible in its current form from countries that are currently on the US 
‘vorboten’ list.

That said, I won’t discourage anyone from seeking a legal advice but if you do, 
make sure these points are addressed.

Jerry Kott, OSCP
Principal, Imageware Corporation 

Security with Integrity. By Choice. By Design.

This message has been digitally signed.
PGP Fingerprint:
A9181736DD2F1B6CC7CF9E51AC8514F48C0979A5



> On 31-05-2020, at 3:17 PM, Richard Sargent 
>  wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Bruce. The part about (the possibility that) squeak source is 
> configured to restrict distribution was the missing piece for me. I had 
> previously assumed (hah!) that it would be available to anyone anywhere.
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 31, 2020, 10:39 Bruce O'Neel  > wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> So addressing only the crypto software issue and with the caveat that I am 
> also not a lawyer but I have had to deal with certain aspects of this in the 
> past
> 
> Crypto software is one of those bizarre dual use items in terms of arms 
> imports and exports.  While we as geeks just think of this is software or 
> mathematics and might be confused as to why governments care, governments do 
> care deeply about this.  And their way of expressing how much they care about 
> this issue is by passing laws and prosecuting folks.
> 
> One of the easiest ways to get in trouble is for one to make the software 
> available to residents and/or citizens of certain countries as well as 
> available to people on a long list kept by different governments.  We can 
> have a long debate about the morality of this concept but those who make the 
> laws have decided that is the law.  And often these laws are crafted such 
> that the executive can change important details on short notice and that puts 
> the risk of prosecution at the whims of different world leaders.
> 
> The license that the software is released under is not important.
> 
> What Ron is stating is that squeak source supplied some additional 
> protections to prevent accidentally making the software available to folks 
> who the US feels should not have access.
> 
> If you have moved the software to another hosting provider without the 
> permission or knowledge of the author, and therefore the owner 

Re: [Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Richard Sargent]

Thanks, Bruce. The part about (the possibility that) squeak source is
configured to restrict distribution was the missing piece for me. I had
previously assumed (hah!) that it would be available to anyone anywhere.


On Sun, May 31, 2020, 10:39 Bruce O'Neel  wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> So addressing only the crypto software issue and with the caveat that I am
> also not a lawyer but I have had to deal with certain aspects of this in
> the past
>
> Crypto software is one of those bizarre dual use items in terms of arms
> imports and exports.  While we as geeks just think of this is software or
> mathematics and might be confused as to why governments care, governments
> do care deeply about this.  And their way of expressing how much they care
> about this issue is by passing laws and prosecuting folks.
>
> One of the easiest ways to get in trouble is for one to make the software
> available to residents and/or citizens of certain countries as well as
> available to people on a long list kept by different governments.  We can
> have a long debate about the morality of this concept but those who make
> the laws have decided that is the law.  And often these laws are crafted
> such that the executive can change important details on short notice and
> that puts the risk of prosecution at the whims of different world leaders.
>
> The license that the software is released under is not important.
>
> What Ron is stating is that squeak source supplied some additional
> protections to prevent accidentally making the software available to folks
> who the US feels should not have access.
>
> If you have moved the software to another hosting provider without the
> permission or knowledge of the author, and therefore the owner of the
> software, you have put that person at additional risk.  In addition you and
> the hosting provider are taking on additional risk.
>
> If it was moved to GitHub I strongly recommend reviewing their policies on
> trade controls and what risks you assume.
>
> https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls
>
>
> Finally I would strongly recommend talking to a competent legal advisor
> who is deeply familiar with the details of these laws.  They are complex
> and highly variable between different parts of the world.
>
> I know this seems like a lot of trouble and wasted time but you can spend
> a giant amount of time and money defending oneself from arms trafficking
> charges.
>
> cheers
>
> bruce
>
> *30 May 2020 14:43 Stéphane Ducasse  > wrote:*
>
> Hi all
>
> This is the week-end and we worked super well yesterday during the sprint.
> Lot of good enhancements - Thanks a lot to all the participants.
> I not really happy to be forced to do it on a sunny saturday but I’m doing
> it to clarify points.
>
> Esteban sent me this text that was posted on Squeak-Dev (I personally do
> not read squeak related forums because
> I have not the time and my focus is Pharo, its consortium, my team, my
> research and my family).
>
> We have to react because
> - We do not really at ***all** understand this email
> - We did not kicked anybody from our mailing-list from ages - so ron is
> lying. In the past we even had discussion with ron - so we do not
> really understand. May be we got problem to log on our mailing-lists.
> We have no idea because we are working and not looking at such things.
> - When we migrated smalltalkhub to readonly we payed attention to make
> sure that private projects stay private.
> We did not migrated smalltalkhub for fun. We MUST do it or it will be done
> by our infrastructure!
> - Now the cryptography packages are MIT and they are public anyway. So
> again we do not understand anything.
>
> We do not get why Ron contacted us because we announced the migration
> publicly way in advance and we will keep
> the Smalltalkhub frozen repo for at least next 5 years.
>
> I feel really sorry to hear such kind of email because we do not want to
> fight with anybody.
> Our goal is to make sure that people can work with Pharo and expand their
> business and knowledge.
> We are working hard to make sure that people can invent their future with
> Pharo and people that know us personally
> know that we are not lying.
>
> S
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've tried to work with the Pharo group but they keep kicking me out of
> their mailing list.  I've already mentioned this a number of times to the
> Pharo group but nobody seems to care.
>
> BOLD BOLD BOLD PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY  BOLD BOLD BOLD
>
> I am not a lawyer but we used very good lawyers to make the squeaksource
> repository a safe place to do cryptography work.  If you are working on
> cryptography DO NOT POST your code anywhere except squeaksource.
> Especially if you are in the USA.  The ONLY repository that is approved to
> host our cryptography code in the USA and therefore not subject to criminal
> violations is squeaksource.  It is a CRIME in the USA to move code and make
> it available on the internet for 

Re: [Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Bruce O'Neel]

  
Hi,  
  
So addressing only the crypto software issue and with the caveat that I am also 
not a lawyer but I have had to deal with certain aspects of this in the 
past  
  
Crypto software is one of those bizarre dual use items in terms of arms imports 
and exports.  While we as geeks just think of this is software or mathematics 
and might be confused as to why governments care, governments do care deeply 
about this.  And their way of expressing how much they care about this issue is 
by passing laws and prosecuting folks.  
  
One of the easiest ways to get in trouble is for one to make the software 
available to residents and/or citizens of certain countries as well as 
available to people on a long list kept by different governments.  We can have 
a long debate about the morality of this concept but those who make the laws 
have decided that is the law.  And often these laws are crafted such that the 
executive can change important details on short notice and that puts the risk 
of prosecution at the whims of different world leaders.    
The license that the software is released under is not important.     
  
What Ron is stating is that squeak source supplied some additional protections 
to prevent accidentally making the software available to folks who the US feels 
should not have access.  
  
If you have moved the software to another hosting provider without the 
permission or knowledge of the author, and therefore the owner of the software, 
you have put that person at additional risk.  In addition you and the hosting 
provider are taking on additional risk.  
  
If it was moved to GitHub I strongly recommend reviewing their policies on 
trade controls and what risks you assume.  
[https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls](https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls)
  
  
  
Finally I would strongly recommend talking to a competent legal advisor who is 
deeply familiar with the details of these laws.  They are complex and highly 
variable between different parts of the world.  
  
I know this seems like a lot of trouble and wasted time but you can spend a 
giant amount of time and money defending oneself from arms trafficking charges. 
 
cheers  
  
bruce  

> Hi all  
>   
> This is the week-end and we worked super well yesterday during the sprint. 
> Lot of good enhancements - Thanks a lot to all the participants.   
> I not really happy to be forced to do it on a sunny saturday but I’m doing it 
> to clarify points.  
>   
> Esteban sent me this text that was posted on Squeak-Dev (I personally do not 
> read squeak related forums because   
> I have not the time and my focus is Pharo, its consortium, my team, my 
> research and my family).   
>   
> We have to react because   
> - We do not really at ***all** understand this email  
> - We did not kicked anybody from our mailing-list from ages - so ron is 
> lying. In the past we even had discussion with ron - so we do not   
> really understand. May be we got problem to log on our mailing-lists.   
> We have no idea because we are working and not looking at such things.     
> - When we migrated smalltalkhub to readonly we payed attention to make sure 
> that private projects stay private.  
> We did not migrated smalltalkhub for fun. We MUST do it or it will be done by 
> our infrastructure!  
> - Now the cryptography packages are MIT and they are public anyway. So again 
> we do not understand anything.   
>   
> We do not get why Ron contacted us because we announced the migration 
> publicly way in advance and we will keep   
> the Smalltalkhub frozen repo for at least next 5 years.   
>   
> I feel really sorry to hear such kind of email because we do not want to 
> fight with anybody.   
> Our goal is to make sure that people can work with Pharo and expand their 
> business and knowledge.   
> We are working hard to make sure that people can invent their future with 
> Pharo and people that know us personally   
> know that we are not lying.  
>   
> S  
>   
>   
>   
> > Hi all,  
> >   
> > I've tried to work with the Pharo group but they keep kicking me out of 
> > their mailing list.  I've already mentioned this a number of times to the 
> > Pharo group but nobody seems to care.    
> >   
> > BOLD BOLD BOLD PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY  BOLD BOLD BOLD  
> >   
> > I am not a lawyer but we used very good lawyers to make the squeaksource 
> > repository a safe place to do cryptography work.  If you are working on 
> > cryptography DO NOT POST your code anywhere except squeaksource.  
> > Especially if you are in the USA.  The ONLY repository that is approved to 
> > host our cryptography code in the USA and therefore not subject to criminal 
> > violations is squeaksource.  It is a CRIME in the USA to move code and make 
> > it available on the internet for everyone to download!  It must be hosted 
> > on [squeaksoruce.com](http://squeaksoruce.com) or another 

[Pharo-users] About strange email related to smalltalkhub read-only on squeak-dev

[Stéphane Ducasse]

Hi all

This is the week-end and we worked super well yesterday during the sprint. Lot 
of good enhancements - Thanks a lot to all the participants. 
I not really happy to be forced to do it on a sunny saturday but I’m doing it 
to clarify points.

Esteban sent me this text that was posted on Squeak-Dev (I personally do not 
read squeak related forums because 
I have not the time and my focus is Pharo, its consortium, my team, my research 
and my family). 

We have to react because 
- We do not really at ***all** understand this email
- We did not kicked anybody from our mailing-list from ages - so ron is 
lying. In the past we even had discussion with ron - so we do not 
really understand. May be we got problem to log on our mailing-lists. 
We have no idea because we are working and not looking at such things.  
 
- When we migrated smalltalkhub to readonly we payed attention to make 
sure that private projects stay private.
We did not migrated smalltalkhub for fun. We MUST do it or it will be 
done by our infrastructure!
- Now the cryptography packages are MIT and they are public anyway. So 
again we do not understand anything. 

We do not get why Ron contacted us because we announced the migration publicly 
way in advance and we will keep 
the Smalltalkhub frozen repo for at least next 5 years. 

I feel really sorry to hear such kind of email because we do not want to fight 
with anybody. 
Our goal is to make sure that people can work with Pharo and expand their 
business and knowledge. 
We are working hard to make sure that people can invent their future with Pharo 
and people that know us personally 
know that we are not lying.

S


> Hi all,
> 
> I've tried to work with the Pharo group but they keep kicking me out of their 
> mailing list.  I've already mentioned this a number of times to the Pharo 
> group but nobody seems to care.  
> 
> BOLD BOLD BOLD PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY  BOLD BOLD BOLD
> 
> I am not a lawyer but we used very good lawyers to make the squeaksource 
> repository a safe place to do cryptography work.  If you are working on 
> cryptography DO NOT POST your code anywhere except squeaksource.  Especially 
> if you are in the USA.  The ONLY repository that is approved to host our 
> cryptography code in the USA and therefore not subject to criminal violations 
> is squeaksource.  It is a CRIME in the USA to move code and make it available 
> on the internet for everyone to download!  It must be hosted on 
> squeaksoruce.com or another location that is also properly registered. 
> 
> IF YOU COPIED CRYPTOGRAPHY CODE TO ANOTHER REPOSITORY THAT IS NOT REGISTERED 
> I would recommend you delete it immediately.
> 
> END BOLD!  
> 
> Please feel free to post this to the Pharo mailing list because they 
> apparently do not want to hear from me!
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Ron Teitelbaum



Stéphane Ducasse
http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr / http://www.pharo.org 
03 59 35 87 52
Assistant: Aurore Dalle 
FAX 03 59 57 78 50
TEL 03 59 35 86 16
S. Ducasse - Inria
40, avenue Halley, 
Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza
Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650
France