Read Crypto by Steven Levy. An amazing account of how cryptography was finally opened up for the Internet. Because before the Net, the wording of the law was very, very restrictive in a way that made no sense with how the Internet operated. It really is eye opening to see the role the NSA played and the tactics they used to try to keep things smothered. Not very different than what is still happening right now with the NSA, apparently.
I was thinking of when the limit of crypto for export was 40 bits SSL, which would have made all e-commerce impossible due to the uselessness of 40 bit crypto. Luckily that was changed.
Export controls were a pain in the ass, but strong cryptography (or what we considered to be strong crypto at the time) was prevalent during the worst of it. Cryptography itself was never outlawed.
Useless semantics. Just because that strong crypto was somewhat de facto while the gears in washinton turned, doesn't negate the fact that the US has and still has a Orwellian slant to technology law, predicated on the desire for control and power over everyday interactions.
