In 1993, his publisher, the Austin Code Works, was investigated for the export of strong cryptography; the US government at the time treated cryptographic software above a certain strength as the legal equivalent of munitions and restricted them accordingly. Ward spent time developing source code fragments collectively titled Moby Crypto to encourage the pervasive development of programs containing state-of-the-art cryptography.
In 1993, Ward's publisher, Austin Code Works, was investigated for exporting advanced encryption software; the US government classified such software as equivalent to weapons and imposed restrictions on its export. To promote widespread use of state-of-the-art cryptography, Ward developed a collection of source code fragments known as Moby Crypto.