re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption brad clarinet com brad templeton writes their strategy is a business one rather than legal one they are pushing to get a standard in place a secret standard and if they get it as a standard then they will drive competitors out of the market it will be legal to sell better untapable encryption that doesn t have registered keys but it will be difficult and thus not a plan for most phone companies if brad s analysis is correct it may offer an explanation for why the encryption algorithm is being kept secret this will prevent competitors from coming out with clipper compatible phones which lack the government installed back door the strategy brad describes will only work as long as the only way to get compatible phones is to have ones with the government chips it would be nice from the point of view of personal privacy if brad turns out to be right as long as people still have the power to provide their own encryption in place of or in addition to the clipper privacy is still possible but the wording of several passages in the announcement makes me doubt whether this will turn out to be true hal finney
