Slightly related to the article and what I found very interesting when I learned about this in the past:
Years before, the government had placed encryption, a method for scrambling messages so they can only be understood by their intended recipients, on the United States Munitions List, alongside bombs and flamethrowers, as a weapon to be regulated for national security purposes. Companies and individuals exporting items on the munitions list, including software with encryption capabilities, had to obtain prior State Department approval.
Slightly related to the article and what I found very interesting when I learned about this in the past:
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States
This link was posted by pera 49 minutes ago on HN. It received 113 points and 22 comments.