Briefings on Federal Encryption Policy/Telecommunications Security Today (Feb 4), the Administration will hold 2 briefings about cryptography and the Clipper chip. The briefings will "report on a review of federal policies and procedures for encryption and telecommunications security-related products and technologies." The first briefing, at 11am EST (i.e., in less that half an hour of this posting), will update Congressional committee staff, and the second will address concerns of industry reps, public interest groups, privacy advocates and other non-government parties. EFF will attend this second meeting, at 1pm EST. EFF will share what it learns about the results of either briefing as soon as possible. An early "heads up" from the the Administration indicates that the main subjects for the briefings will be: Administration will announce Clipper/Skipjack Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Justice Dept. key escrow procedures to be announced Announcement of Treasury and NIST as Escrow Agents Decisions on encrytion products that fit under current export standards announced. Other topics also likely to be addressed (unconfirmed): State Dept. will, surprisingly, streamline procedures for export of Clipper Administration not going forward with DSS licensing agreement with PKP/RSADSI. -- Stanton McCandlish * mech@eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist F O R M O R E I N F O, E - M A I L T O: I N F O @ E F F . O R G O P E N P L A T F O R M O N L I N E R I G H T S V I R T U A L C U L T U R E C R Y P T O