From: fergp@sytex.com (Paul Ferguson)
Date: Sun, 1 Aug 93 13:48:31 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Key Escrow and MYK-ky Mouse
Message-ID: <8kZL8B1w165w@sytex.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Sat, 31 Jul 93 22:59:12 -0600,
 L. Detweiler <uunet!longs.lance.colostate.edu!ld231782> wrote -
 
> I don't recall seeing articles saying that the government officially
> decided to stop calling Clipper Clipper, and start calling it Skipjack,
> because of the trademark infringement. I wonder when this actually
> happened. Just another little humiliation...
 
Probably because the government never officially annonced it. ,-)
 
The algoritm is _still_ called Skipjack, only the entire initiative,
and the chips themselves, have seemed to been discreetly renamed.
 
Actually, I noticed that the NIST stopped calling the plan "Clipper"
and started emphatically calling the entire farce the "key-escrow"
initiative when the open forum and hearing was announced in May for
the Computer Systems Security and Privacy Advisory Board review held
in June in Gaithersburg. A "contact" in the NIST explained that they
were embarrassed by the Intergraph correlation in the "Clipper"
moniker, so they just casually started calling it something else
completely.
 
As far as I'm concerned, it's still the MYK-78 and "Capstone" is still
MYK-80. It sounds more militaristic, which is in keeping with the image
of a Gestapo dictatorship.
 
Cheers.

Paul Ferguson               |  "Government, even in its best state,
Network Integrator          |   is but a necessary evil; in its worst
Centreville, Virginia USA   |   state, an intolerable one."
fergp@sytex.com             |      - Thomas Paine, Common Sense
 
         I love my country, but I fear its government.