the vp from mycotoxin spoke, and some reporter said: "He said the chip announced yesterday, internally referred to as MYK-78, costs about $40 and uses an algorithm 16 million times more complex than that used by chips now on the market. Computer hackers have penetrated the current chips." 16 M is approx 2^24 80 bit wiretap chip key - 56 bit DES key = 24 Just because the key is 24 bits longer doesn't mean the chips are that much more complex. Biham and Shamir have reduced the security of DES down to 2^47 (maybe down a few more in the exponent), but that does not mean that it has been broken. 2^47 chosen plaintexts is not a feasible attack in a reasonably deployed system. This is the best known attack. Biham and Shamir are not computer hackers, either. So assuming the reporter was basically accurate, what's the score for our VP? One deceit and one outright lie combined with a gratuitous slander. Eric