At 10:13 PM 7/31/96 -0700, Cerridwyn Llewyellyn wrote:

A more cynical view is that they are there to protect some of the biggest institutions of "organized crime" (ie: Congress, At&t, Microsoft, etc) who are ripping people off on a daily basis from the other organizations who refuse to play by their rules.

Speaking of AT+T, as I recall one of the incidents which preceded the introduction of Clipper was the news that AT+T was going to introduce an encrypted telephone using DES as the encryption algorithm. According to the story, AT+T was "bought off" by the US government. I haven't looked into that for a couple of years, but if we're looking for co-conspirators that would be a good place to start. Also: Clipper was fabbed by VLSI Technology. A few pointed inquiries might work wonders here. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com