On 16th September 1999 the Clinton Administration announced a new, far more lenient export policy in respect of encryption commodities. After years during which the American security agencies had claimed that the free export of means of encryption would endanger national security and had required encryption programs to leave a "back door" through which they could access the hidden information, the new policy can be viewed as a real revolution.
The changes brought about by the Internet in the character of encryption, its use and prevalence have forced the hand of the Washington Administration. From something designed for military organisations, encryption tools have come to have clearly civil purposes: the security of data en route from the browser of the surfer in the on-line shop to the shop's servers; the security of information on e-commerce servers that store customer and credit card details; the encryption of information on private virtual networks that link separate offices by
