From: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:15:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: encryption in BeOS kernel
Message-ID: <acceb284000210049f9b@[205.199.118.202]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Either John Young or someone imitating his style wrote:

>Would chip-fabbers covertly Fortezza chips to get export ok?
>

I have no idea what "Fortezza" means as a verb, but I'll Moscow a guess:
Intel might, according to this guesser, insert NSA-approved back doors in
"information appliance" chips.

Unlikely in the extreme, for a variety of reasons. First, designers cannot
keep secrets. Second, examination of the chips would reveal such meddling.
Third, Intel is only one of several likely providers of such chips (e.g.,
Oracle is said to have plans to use Acorn ARM chips, and DEC may also
provide low-end Alpha chips, and of course Motorola-IBM has variants of the
PPC to provide).

>Motorola, HP, IBM, others long-linked to USG are ever ready
>to gobble international market share in the national
>interest.
>
>Intel, sure, world-class fab plants planting chip-secrets.
>
>Wonder if that key escrow protest to Gore is a cover for
>economic actions authorized by National Security D&D?

Too much Pynchon?

--Tim May

Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government.
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