On Sun, 18 Apr 1993 09:49:35 -0500 Dave Banisar <banisar@washofc.cpsr.org> posted:
Subject: AT&T Press Release on Clipper
Here's AT&T's announcement on the Clipper.
AT&T TO INCORPORATE NEW 'CLIPPER' CHIP INTO SECURE COMMUNICATIONS PRODUCT LINE
GREENSBORO, N.C., April 16
AT&T (NYSE: T) said today it is moving to improve the security and privacy of telephone communications by incorporating a just-announced new U.S. government technology for voice encryption into its secure communications product line.
AT&T will use the Clipper chip, announced today by President Clinton as a
[mucho deleted]
AT&T Secure Communications Systems is headquartered in Greensboro. For more information about the AT&T Telephone Security Device 3600 and other AT&T Secure Communications Products, call David Arneke at 919-279-7680. CONTACT: David Arneke of AT&T Secure Communications Systems, 919-279- 7680,or after hours, 919-273-5687, or Herb Linnen of AT&T Media Relations, 202-457-3933, or after hours, 202-333-9162
Expecting to get a recording or something of the like, I called the last of these numbers, and got a considerably agitated Herb Lennen--at home--who had already been the recipient of a call or two. He was not happy, to put it mildly! I kindly informed him that his home phone number had been posted all over the computer nets by someone posting an official ATT press release, and that the government's universal wiretap chip, er Clipper chip, was fast becoming a controversial topic. He accused me of being with an "organized hacker group," and stated that he only talks to people from news organizations of the NYT and Wall Street Journal size. I offered to send him a sample of the comments, but he declined to give me his email address. (Though I suspect that Herb_Lennen@att.com might work.) Most interesting though, he told me that John Markoff had written the definitive (and he implied positive) story on the chip. Yo John! If you are not reading the cypherpunks list for the "other side" of this story, you might want to. Keith Henson