Harry Shapiro said he wasn't able to find much information on Mykotronx. The San Francisco Chronicle says it's a "little-known company in Torrance, CA"; "Mykotronx Inc., founded in 1979 by two former engineers from TRW Inc., already sells classified encryption chips to protect satellite communications." "San Jose-based VLSI Research Inc. will manufacture the chip, called the Clipper. VLSI was chosen largely because it has a unique manufacturing process that makes it nearly impossible to take the chip apart and decode it." The Washington Times says that "Government engineers at NSA and [...] NIST designed and developed the chip, which was then produced by privately owned Mykotronx and a publicly traded subcontractor, VLSI Technology." In their discussion of comments by Ted Bettwy, exec VP of Mykotronx, "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." Bill Stewart