Today’s Internet users are still being hurt by ’90s-era US encryption policies

Another week, another dire warning about the technology used to secure online communications. Internet security researchers are warning about a previously undisclosed vulnerability that affected all modern Web browsers -- a weakness that could allow an attacker to snoop or even change communications thought to be secure. The origins of the problem can be traced to the 1990s, when the government waged a policy debate know as the "Crypto Wars" over the digital technologies now widely used to keep online communications safe. But the debate, once counted as a win by privacy advocates, is now raging again -- and technologists warn it could have similarly dire consequences.

The government classified encryption -- a process that scrambles up information so that only those authorized can decode it -- as a munition and tried to limit the spread of the most robust forms outside the United States through strict export rules on military technologies. But even though the United States reversed course by the end of the decade, the rules were so ingrained in technologies that make the Web run, they're still causing problems today. Long after the most restrictive export rules on encryption have been lifted, the legacy of that policy is still leaving Internet users around the world less secure, experts say.