why the clipper algorithm is secret the cryptographic protocol though is another matter i see no valid reasons for keeping it secret and as i hope i ve shown above there are a lot of ways to do things that aren t quite as bad it just occurred to me why the algorithm is secret if it were published one could then build physically identical clone versions of the chip that would interoperate with official clipper chips but the cloner wouldn t provide the keys to the escrow houses hmmn or is there a technical hack that i ve missed e g how about if the chips were made unprogrammed but serialized and then shipped to the two escrow houses who programmed in their halves of the keys but in a way that requires that secret keys known only to the escrow houses be installed as well without which clone versions wouldn t interoperate this is getting awfully complicated but that s crypto for you john r levine iecc pob cambridge ma johnl iecc cambridge ma us ima spdcc world iecc johnl time is money steal some today
