re clipper chip long follow up in article apr cc curtin edu au zrepachol cc curtin edu au paul repacholi writes questions and answers about the clinton administration s telecommunications initiative q suppose a law enforcement agency is conducting a wiretap on a drug smuggling ring and intercepts a conversation encrypted using the device what would they have to do to decipher the message a they would have to obtain legal authorization normally a court order to do the wiretap in the first place they would then present documentation of this authorization to the two entities responsible for safeguarding the keys and obtain the keys for the device being used by the drug smugglers the key is split into two parts which are stored separately in order to ensure the security of the key escrow system i apologize for being so dense but this sentence reads as if it was lifted from a luis bunuel screenplay am i missing something why on earth would drug smugglers even use the device then obviously they ll be using something like triple encryption des instead as long as alternatives to clipper remain legal clipper accomplishes absolutely nothing zero as far as law enforcement is concerned the whole scheme is an absolute total incredible waste of government time and money as long as other encryption schemes that are any good remain legal in order for clipper to work as intended all strong cryptosystems have to be outlawed jan bielawski computervision san diego jpb calmasd prime com
