CLIPPER COMPROMIZED!!!! :-)

[bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204]

There's been a report going around linking Aldrich Ames to Clipper.
Back when I read alt.folklore.urban a lot, I'd see stories like that.
My guess about the origin of this report is that it evolved like this:

- Somebody on talk.politics.crypto posts a comment like
	"Oh, come on - if the CIA can't prevent trusted spies like
	Aldrich Ames from leaking the names of other spies,
	how will the NSA keep its people from giving away 
	the CLipper secrets, either for bribes or for "patriotic"
	reasons like loyalty to the "Office of the President".

- Somebody else reads that and says
	 "What if a *spy* like Aldrich Ames gave away Clipper?"

- Somebody else reads that and says
	"Does anybody know if Aldrich Ames had anything to do with Clipper?"

which somebody in the press hears somebody say to somebody else, and
it turns into a report like:

> <<CLIPPER COMPROMISED?  "Security Insider Report," a monthly newsletter
> published in Seminole, Fla., has reported that government officials are
> seeking to determine whether former CIA employee and alleged traitor
> Aldrich Ames may have sold information to the Russians about the
> government's secret key-escrow technology used in Clipper Chip chipsets
> and Capstone Tessera cards.  The secret key-escrow technology, dubbed
> Skipjack, can be used to encrypt network voice and data.

which must *obviously* be true because it came off the *wire services*...

Probably Aldrich Ames didn't have any contact with the people in the
NSA doing Clipper or the FBI people doing Digital Telephony Prevention.

		Bill