NPR piece on "Clipper Chip" this morning

NPR did a (for them, anyway) well-balanced piece on the wiretap chip
this morning. Per their standard, the reporter (Dan Charles) had sound
bites from both sides: Whit Diffie, representing the
strong-privacy-through-crypto crowd, and the (acting?) director of
NIST, Raymond whose-last-name-I-forget.

Highlights: Diffie compared Clipper to a real estate lockbox. The feds
don't have to have the key to the house (=phone), just the key to the
lockbox. If you change your Clipper key, the chip keeps a copy.

NIST guy said that he strongly supports individual privacy, but law
enforcement needs have to be counted, too.

Diffie (rough quote): "Technology makes policy. If the gov't spends
hundreds of millions of dollars on a chip which allows them to tap
phones, they will do so because the technology's there."

Good for NPR. A balanced piece.

-Paul

-- 
Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG                | HELP STOP THE BIG BROTHER CHIP!
NTI Mission Software Development Div. | RIPEM key on request.