Isn't that like saying someone fined for exporting missiles was fined for "exporting physics", or someone fined for exporting chemical weapons was fined for "exporting chemistry"? If not, how do you distinguish them?
Note: I'm not suggesting that the cryptography export restrictions are useful or make any sense it all. They don't, as far as I can tell. I'm just trying to get some discussion going as to whether reductionist arguments like "exporting math" make sense.
Missiles and chemical weapons are physical objects which one can reasonably presume to maintain at least some degree of control over.
Encryption algorithms are math, theory, information. They can be reproduced, copied, and transmitted at-will, for no cost.
If the difference is still non-obvious, google around for instructions to make ricin. Easy to find, and it's not illegal to share that information. Why should it be illegal to share any other data? And how could one reasonably expect to enforce it?
It's definitely illegal to commercially export information in those areas as well, at least past some level of detail. For example it's illegal to sell missile or reactor blueprints without approval. It's not just selling the physical objects (missiles or reactors) that's illegal, but also selling the information on how to construct them.
Neither missiles nor chemical weapons are ideas. They are not information; they are tangible.
A better analogy would be someone exporting a piece of paper with the reactions involved in a chemical weapon on it, or the formulas that describe where a missile will land given certain parameters.
Note: I'm not suggesting that the cryptography export restrictions are useful or make any sense it all. They don't, as far as I can tell. I'm just trying to get some discussion going as to whether reductionist arguments like "exporting math" make sense.