Actually, even if the clipper chip is limited to 10 bytes plus a 3 byte checksum of sort, even if it's 10 bits it doesn't matter. What you'd plug in the socket could have it's own CPU, and key database, or even a plug in keypad of sorts to type in whatever key you want. You don't necessarily have to use the clipper requested key. A key of all 1's or 0's would be great, infact, it would be better than great, it would be an indicator that the key is elsewhere, etc. This plug in chip could have extra pins which don't plug into the clipper chip socket, but rather go to another board layer which would keep a database of encrypted keys and some way to access those keys with a passphrase. (I'm typing this in from work where all I have is some rather $#itty term software, so please forgive my typos, etc.)