On Friday, August 31, 2001, at 11:43 AM, Faustine wrote:

Tim wrote:

...

But, as with Kirchoff's point, the attacker is going to get the design eventually.

If getting the design "eventually" were good enough, why the keen interest in putting in a large order for the beta? There's a reason.

Perhaps the NSA wanted to use the product without making illegal copies? Your earlier point (that they wished to reverse-engineer the product) is in fact undermined by this fact that they bought N copies. --Tim May