Response to Australia's Defence Trade Controls Act

July 6, 2015

We are deeply concerned about Australia's Defence Trade Controls Act (DTCA). The act prohibits the "intangible supply" of encryption technologies, and hence subjects many ordinary teaching and research activities to unclear, potentially severe, export controls. As an international organization of cryptographic researchers and educators, we are concerned that the DTCA criminalizes the very essence of our association: to advance the theory and practice of cryptography in the service of public welfare.

We affirm that the public welfare of Australians — and society in general — is best served by open research and education in cryptography and cybersecurity. Open, international scientific collaboration is responsible for the encryption technologies that are now vital to individuals, businesses, and world governments alike. The current legislation cuts off Australia from the international cryptographic research community and jeopardizes the supply of qualified workforce in Australia's growing cybersecurity sector.

We call on Australia to amend their export control laws to include clear exemptions for scientific research and for education.

IACR Member Signatories (234):

Christian Cachin, President of the IACR, IBM Research - Zurich, Switzerland

Nigel Smart, Vice President IACR, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Gregory Rose, Cryptography Consultant, Australian citizen and IACR treasurer, United States

Michel Abdalla, Director of the IACR, Ã‰cole Normale SupÃ©rieure & CNRS, France

David Pointcheval, Senior Researcher, Director of the IACR, Ã‰cole Normale SupÃ©rieure & CNRS, Franc

Moti Yung, IACR Board Member, USA

Mike Rosulek, IACR Communications Secretary & Assistant Professor, Oregon State University, USA

Bart Preneel, IACR Board Member, Full Professor, KU Leuven, Belgium

Thomas A. Berson, Director of IACR, Anagram Laboratories, United States

Yuval Yarom, The University of Adelaide, Australia

Douglas Stebila, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Josef Pieprzyk, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Vanessa Teague, University of Melbourne, Australia

Doche Christophe, Macquarie University, Australia

Ron Steinfeld, Monash University, Australia

Benjamin Dowling, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Yehuda Lindell, Professor, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Duong-Hieu Phan, Assistant Professor, University of Paris 8, France

Ivan Damgard, Aarhus University, Denmark

Martijn Stam, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Steven Galbraith, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Sherman S.M. Chow, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong

Stefan Dziembowski, University of Warsaw, Poland

Jean Paul Degabriele, Royal Holloway, United Kingdom

Vanishree Rao, UCLA, United States

Phillip Rogaway, University of California, Davis, United States

Emmanuela Orsini, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Tiago Fonseca, Gama Faculty - University of Brasilia, Brazil

Silas Richelson, UCLA, United States

Damien StehlÃ©, ENS de Lyon, France

Thomas Peyrin, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Moises Salinas-Rosales, Faculty at IPN Computing Research Center (CIC) MX, Mexico

Nadia Heninger, University of Pennsylvania, United States

Olivier Blazy, UniversitÃ© de Limoges, France

Craig Costello, Microsoft Research, United States

Paulo Barreto, University of SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil

Patrick Derbez, SnT, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Stephen Lombardo, Zetetic LLC, United States

Alejandro Hevia, University of Chile, Chile

Dario Fiore, IMDEA Software Institute, Madrid, Spain

Michael J. Markowitz, Information Security Corp., United States

Robert Amzi Jeffs, Harvey Mudd College, United States

Abhishek Banerjee, Georgia Institue of Technology, United States

Yuliang Zheng, University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States

Mike Hamburg, United States

Manoj Prabhakaran, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States

Deepesh Data, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India

Steven Myers, Associate Professor, Indiana University, United States

Benedikt Gierlichs, KU Leuven, Belgium

Mridul Nandi, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, India

Saqib A. Kakvi, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

GaÃ«tan LEURENT, INRIA, France

Leo Ducas, CWI, The Netherlands

Stefan Mangard, Professor, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Razvan Barbulescu, CNRS, France

Alexandre Anzala Yamajako, Thales Communication & Security, France

Serge Fehr, CWI Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Fabrice Benhamouda, Ecole Normale SupÃ©rieure, France

Eduardo Soria VÃ¡zquez, Spain

Pablo Rauzy, Telecom ParisTech, France

Florian Mendel, Senior Researcher, Graz University of Technology, Austria

LÃ©o Perrin, SnT, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Olivier Billet, IACR Member, France

Richard OUTERBRIDGE, Canada

Tobias Boelter, UC Berkeley, USA

Maria Eichlseder, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Reza Ebrahimi Atani, University of Guilan, Iran

Khoa Nguyen, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Ignacio Cascudo, Aarhus University, Denmark

Randy Bush, IIJ Research Laboratory & Dragon Research Labs

Martin Albrecht, Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom

Andreas AÃŸmuth, Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule (OTH) Amberg-Weiden, Germany

Jean-Bernard Fischer, NagraVision, Switzerland

Stig F. MJOLSNES, Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Norway

Ron RIVEST, MIT, United States

Dominique Unruh, Professor of Information Security, University of Tartu, Estonia

Aaron Zauner, lambda.co.at, Austria

Andrew Clark, Primary Key Associates Limited, United Kingdom

Karim ElDefrawy, United States

Somindu Ramanna, ENS Lyon, France

Eran Tromer, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Bogdan Warinschi, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Qiong Huang, South China Agricultural University, China

Felix GÃ¼nther, Technische UniversitÃ¤t Darmstadt, Germany

Pierre Karpman, Inria / X-NTU, France

Tal Moran, IDC Herzliya, Israel

Atsushi FUJIOKA, Kanagawa University, Japan

Jens Groth, University College London, United Kingdom

Paul Grubbs, Skyhigh Networks, United States

Daniele Micciancio, professor, UCSD, United States

Alessandra Scafuro, BU and NEU, United States

Seokhie Hong, CIST, Republic of Korea

Yuriy Aydarov, Perm State University, Russian Federation

Shai Halevi, IBM Research, United States

Naofumi Homma, Tohoku U, Japan

Sahadeo Padhye, Department of Mathematics, MNNIT Allahabad (India), India

Palash Sarkar, Professor, Indian Statistical Institute, India

Jonathan Katz, University of Maryland, United States

Huseyin Demirci, TUBITAK BILGEM, Turkey

Jian Guo, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Christina Boura, UniversitÃ© de Versailles, France

TancrÃ¨de Lepoint, France

Colin BOYD, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway

Peter Schwabe, Radboud University, The Netherlands

Victoria Fehr, TU Darmstadt, Germany

Stefan Katzenbeisser, Professor, Technische Universitaet Darmstadt, Germany

Thomas Martin, Khalifa University, United Arab Emirates

Tore Frederiksen, Aarhus University, Denmark

HÃ¥vard Raddum, Simula Research Laboratory, Norway

Willi Meier, FHNW , Switzerland

Serge Vaudenay, Professor, EPFL, Switzerland

Benjamin Smith, INRIA / Ã‰cole polytechnique, France

Daniele Venturi, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

Tanja Lange, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Alexandre Duc, EPFL, Switzerland

Frederic Jouret, France

Stefan KÃ¶lbl, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Grigory Karpunin, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation

Carla RÃ fols, Ruhr-UniversitÃ¤t Bochum, Germany

Philip Ittmann, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Christine Swart, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Victor Lomne, France

Mario Lamberger, Senior Cryptographer, NXP Semiconductors, Austria

Serge Gautier, Cartes Bancaires, France

Britta Hale, Research Fellow, NTNU, Norway

Christoph Bader, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Roberto Trifiletti, Aarhus University, Denmark

Sonia Bogos, EPFL, Switzerland

Jeroen Doumen, The Netherlands

IstvÃ¡n LÃ¡m, Tresorit, Hungary

Robert R. Enderlein, IBM Research Zurich & ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Ruben Niederhagen, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Christian Rechberger, DTU , Denmark

Tim GÃ¼neysu, Ruhr-UniversitÃ¤t Bochum, Germany

Benoit Libert, ENS de Lyon, France

Christian Janson, Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom

Brecht Wyseur, NAGRA, Switzerland

Afonso Arriaga, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Niv Gilboa, Ben-Gurion University, Israel

Weijun Shan, Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Group Co., Ltd., China

Tyge Tiessen, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Maximilian Fillinger, CWI, The Netherlands

Neil Hanley, Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom

Tal Malkin, Columbia University, United States

Orr Dunkelman, University of Haifa, Israel

Bernardo Machado David, Aarhus University, Denmark

Sunoo Park, MIT, United States

Damien Vergnaud, Ecole normale superieure, France

Anne CANTEAUT, INRIA , France

Stephan Krenn, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Austria

Damian VizÃ¡r, EPFL, Switzerland

Sanjay Bhattacherjee, ENS-Lyon, France

Wanja Vogel, Germany

Mikhail Ponomarev, Russian Federation

Joppe W. Bos, Cryptographer, NXP Semiconductors, Belgium

Juan A. Garay, Yahoo Labs, United States

Kai-Min Chung, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, ROC

Jesse Stern, University of Rochester, United States

Bryan Parno, Microsoft Research, United States

JÃ©rÃ©my JEAN, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Jin Hong, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Peter Scholl, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Carlos Cid, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom

Filip Zagorski, Wroclaw University of Technology, Poland

Yu Yu, IACR webmaster, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Joost Rijneveld, Radboud University, The Netherlands

Hua Wu, The George Washington University, China

Helena Handschuh, Cryptography Research, United States

Carl Ellison, Ellison Consulting LLC, United States

Mikkel KrÃ¸igaard, Denmark

Shoichi Hirose, University of Fukui, Japan

Sylvain Pelissier, Switzerland

Pascale Charpin, INRIA - Paris-Rocquencourt, France

Michael Tunstall, Cryptography Research, United States

Benny Applebaum, Tel Aviv University, Israel

MAHARDIKA SOFFAN PUTRA, NATIONAL CRYPTO AGENCY OF REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA, Indonesia

Tommaso Gagliardoni, TU Darmstadt, Germany

Martin M. Lauridsen, DTU, Denmark

Jean-Luc Beuchat, Switzerland

Bart Mennink, KU Leuven, Belgium

Minhye Seo, Korea University, Republic of Korea

Kwangsu Lee, Korea University, Republic of Korea

Philipp Jovanovic, University of Passau, Germany

Giorgia Azzurra Marson, TU Darmstadt, Germany

Alexander Dent, United Kingdom

Tatsuaki OKAMOTO, NTT, Japan

Reza Reyhanitabar, Ã‰cole Polytechnique FÃ©dÃ©rale de Lausanne, Switzerland

Thijs Laarhoven, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Pascal Junod, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, Switzerland

Alfons Lievens, SWIFT, Belgium

Lei Wang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Christof Paar, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany

Ueli Maurer, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Muluneh Hailegiorgies, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Ethiopia

Daniel Abraha Weldemariam, , Ethiopia

Arno Mittelbach, Technische UniversitÃ¤t Darmstadt, Germany

Todd Plesco, Info Security Pro, United States

Cihangir Tezcan, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Masayuki Abe, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories, Japan

Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University, United States

Susumu Kiyoshima, Japan

Amit Sahai, UCLA, United States

Jon Callas, United States

Mark Wooding, United Kingdom

Benjamin Kreuter, Google, United States

Shan Chen, , United States

Manuel Sabin, UC Berkeley, United States

Vinod Vaikuntanathan, MIT/CSAIL, United States

Jiaxin Pan, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Dominique Schroeder, Saarland University, Germany

Felix Heuer, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Hilarie Orman, Purple Streak, Inc., United States

BjÃ¶rn Tackmann, UC San Diego, United States

Daniel J. Bernstein, U. Illinois at Chicago, United States, and Technische U. Eindhoven, Netherlands

Melissa Chase, United States

Justin Holmgren, MIT, United States

Manuel Fersch, Ruhr-UniversitÃ¤t Bochum, Germany

Rei Safavi-Naini, University of Calgary, Canada

Peter Rindal, Oregon State University, United States

Marcel Keller, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Mark A. Lane - Foo Crypt, A Tale of Cynical Cyclical Encryption., Australia.

Alain PasselÃ¨gue, Ã‰cole normale supÃ©rieure, France

Daniel Martin, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Lynn M. Batten, Professor, Deakin University, Australia

Markulf Kohlweiss, Microsoft Research, United Kingdom

Tetsu Iwata, Nagoya University, Japan

Helaine Leggat, Director Information Legal, Australia

Michael Clear, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Aggelos Kiayias, University of Athens, Greece

Sebastian Wallat, Ruhr UniversitÃ¤t Bochum, Germany

Dragos Rotaru, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Roland Gillard, UGA, France

Teddy A PURWADI, PANDI ( .id) Registry, Indonesia

PRATYAY MUKHERJEE, UC Berkeley

Other Endorsements

The following organizations have also endorsed the petition:

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About the IACR

The International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) is a non-profit scientific organization whose purpose is to further research in cryptology and related fields. Cryptology is the science and practice of designing computation and communication systems which are secure in the presence of adversaries.

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