I remember the Clipper Chip well - it was one of the first issues to introduce me to the EFF and the (still growing) war against general purpose computing. Reg

I remember the Clipper Chip well - it was one of the first issues to introduce me to the EFF and the (still growing) war against general purpose computing. Regarding the Clipper Chip, there is an observation that I haven't seen talked about in these discussions. There is an important difference in the NSA's tactics with their Clipper Chip proposal and their more recent activities: while technically and socially flawed, the key-escrow plan at least attempts to respect the constitution. By keeping the keys at a 3rd party, in theory the NSA was limited to what they could ask for. Automatic rubber stamped warrants may allow them access to a lot of data, but it (again, in theory) would have been tiny in comparison to their current dragnets. At first I took this as implying a change in the goals or leadership at the agency; a lot can change in a decade. But then we were introduced to BULLRUN and how it may have targeted[1] IPSEC. Given that the IPSEC working group was started in 1995, this suggests the NSA may have been trying to subvert opportunistic crypto during the Clipper Chip imbroglio. While it is speculation, this could raise the possibility that the Clipper Chip was just a distraction, while NSA's eye's were on the larger goal was the crypto standards themselves. Of course, any proof, if any, of this is buried deep in the NSA and not likely to see the light of day anytime soon. [1] http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg12325.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg123...