The Feds Thoughts on Clipper

An anonymous reader sent us this article which describes a bunch of stuff released as part of the freedom of information act regarding the clipper chip. Its an interesting look into the government's view of encryption (or at least, what it thought 10 years ago anyway. Now that they have the quantum computer that can crack all all communications, and the quantum disk drives that they use to store every packet ever, they already know your underwear size, to say nothing of a complete copy of your DNA for their cloning efforts).

Comments

Re:So what?

[stup]

The FBI knowing your underwear size is a GOOD thing. It means that when they handcuff you, they can use custom-made handcuffs that'll be more comfortable for you. Same goes for straitjackets - the taylor-made ones are FAR superiour to the Off-The-Shelf variety.

It's an interesting lifestyle choice that considers handcuffs and straitjackets to be underwear, but hey, I'm not judging anyone. :)

"If you tell me all your secrets, I promise not to blackmail you."
StuP

Missing Info

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

What about the 4000+ pages of clipper chip information that hasn't been found by FBI personnel yet?

The whole concept of clipper was flawed

[MarkusQ]

What everyone seems to have forgotten was that Clipper wouldn't have worked (at least, not as intended, and provided the "bad guys" were reasonably smart). You can embed hardware encryption with as many built in backdoors as you like in every device I use--then I just send software encrypted message over the channel just as I would with a regular phone line. When you tap the line and do your sneaky best, what you wind up with is still encrypted.

-- MarkusQ