Mike Ingle () writes:
What do you think?
I think I definitely want to see Clipper Phones hacked and slashed out of existence, but as long as hardware hacking is required, their availability will be limited to a small group of people who know how to use a soldering iron. Why not concentrate on using commercial hardware (fast modems, soundblaster cards with DSP, voicemail cards with hardware compression, etc) to make a plug-and-play cryptophone using 3DES or IDEA, and PGP keys? That will appeal to a much larger audience. We should definitely learn all we can about the Clipper system, however.
In a way, I agree, but I am skeptical on the price point we will be able to achieve compared to just cannibalizing a ClipperPhone for spare parts. Ideally, the "cypherpunk phone" should consist of 1) cheap v.32 modem (<$200) 2) cheap 8bit sampler/audio card 3) CELP vocoder ardware, or cheap DSP with it implemented in software 4) a fast 486 (to do real time 3DES/IDEA @ CELP rates) Most people already have 1,4, they need 2,3 which will cost anywhere from $300-600 depending on what kind of DSP you get. This is too much money for such a standard to proliferate. If the ClipperPhones are cheaper, we could do better to buy those and cannibalize them for parts. (maybe we could convince ZyXeL to add an "auto-CELP-comp" mode like v.42 to their modems with built in CELP? ) -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries --