[leonidasrup]

In the 90s, you as a private person were not supposed to have access to encyption which could not be broken by NSA.

"The longest key size allowed for export without individual license proceedings was 40 bits, so Netscape developed two versions of its web browser. The "U.S. edition" had the full 128-bit strength. The "International Edition" had its effective key length reduced to 40 bits by revealing 88 bits of the key in the SSL protocol."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

[tptacek]

No. In the 1990s, you weren't allowed to export cryptography the NSA couldn't break. Strong cryptography was widely available in the 1990s.

(I had the pleasure of shipping a commercial product, back in the days when those things shipped in shrink-wrapped boxes, that carried strong cryptography, and had to deal with the export regime. It was not fun.)

[mswphd]

note that this says something more limited than what you're saying. Specifically, an american company was not allowed to give access to the cryptography you describe to non-Americans.

This was still a very bad policy, but private americans were allowed to have strong cryptography.