In February 1993, two government investigators paid Zimmermann a visit. After their initial enquiries about patent infringement, they began to ask questions about the more serious accusation of illegally exporting a weapon. Because the U.S. Government included encryption software within its definition of munitions, along with missiles, mortars and machine guns, PGP could not be exported without a license from the State Department. In other words, Zimmermann was accused of being an arms dealer because he had exported PGP via the Internet. Over the next three years Zimmermann became the subject
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