These regulations have been superceeded by the EAR regulations under the Commerce Department. Some have argued that this change was a direct result of the administration attempting to do and end around on the courts in the Berstein case. They make a compelling arguement. In some ways, the EAR regulations are even more draconian that ITAR was. US citizens are prohibited from even assisting in the overseas development of strong cryptography under the new regulations.

Export regulations apply specifically to algorithms for encryption. Algorithms which can only be used for authentication are specifically excluded. But that's not always an easy out either. It's very difficult to develop and algorithm that will work for authentication which can not be turned around in some way to do encryption.

Recent announcements by the US administration have relaxed some export limits and requirements for strong cryptography, but the progress is deliberately slow and almost insignificant.

Many cryptographic algorithms are patented, copyrighted, or held as a trade secret. These intellectual property issues vary from country to country and are often confusion and contradictory.

While the US does not restrict domestic posession of strong encryption, France and Russia do have prohibitions even against the posession of unapproved cryptography.

Australlia is currently the source of some of the best cryptography in the world, but only because of a legal loophole that some are trying to close. It is legal, in Australlia to post cryptography on a computer and permit it to be downloaded, even though it is not legal to commercially export cryptography on any physical media.

Japan prohibits the commercial export of cryptography but, like Australlia, allows non-commercial distribution of cryptography over the Internet.