Noncryptographic Security Issues - Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times - page 422

Skipjack was a component of what NSA called Capstone , a PKC, developed
by NSA, that included the DSS (see Section 4.3). Skipjack was started by NSA
in 1985, and completed in 1990. The NSA had moved heavily to ensure that
the DES keylength was kept relatively small, while developing Skipjack as an
improved, albeit classified SKC. Thus, the NSA wanted to have their cake and
eat it, too (see pages 98 and 117, for instance). However, the public outcry
against what was seen as an extreme invasion of privacy would not allow them
much more than a slice of that cake.
The brainchild of the Clipper Chip was Clinton Brooks who rose to become
assistant deputy director at the NSA. Brooks, who was intent on the success
of the Clipper Chip, approached Al Gore after the 1992 election victory of Bill
Clinton, even before they entered the White House in December of that year.
Being a “techno-geek” himself, Gore was taken with the idea. Gore had a desire
to see an Information Highway and was intent on making this a reality. Once
the Clinton administration took power in 1993, meetings were set in high gear
by the NSA with the White House staff. By March 31, 1993, Clinton gave the
go-ahead for the Clipper project. However, he had no idea that this move would
signal the end, not the beginning, of government control of cryptology.
NIST was required to solicit public input on the Clipper project, and the
results were devastating for the pro-Clipper side. Only six percent of those
responding were in favour of the proposal. The White House was undeterred. On
February 4, 1994, Clinton formally enshrined Clipper as a FIPS standard, known
as the Escrow Encryption Standard (EES). However, opponents were speaking
out against the project in growing numbers with some impressive names doing
the talking. Phil Zimmermann (see Section 8.1), posed the important query:
Why would anyone want the Clipper Chip when programs like PGP were readily
available and free? Why indeed? Whit DiHe (see page 167) appeared at a Senate
hearing on the matter and basically focused on the right of the populace to freely
communicate and do so in private, without (what had come to be known as)
“Big Brother on a Chip” monitoring their every word. Then the flaws of the
Clipper Chip idea came to the fore in a way that is even more powerful than
the testimony of hundreds of top-notch experts.
Matthew Blaze worked in the cryptography group of AT&T Bell Labs in New
Jersey. In early 1994, NSA became interested in Blaze as a potential outside
source for testing the Clipper Chip so they invited him to NSA headquarters.
He discovered that the certain safeguards built into one of the LEAF fields was
a pitiful 16 bits. Using this fact he cracked the scheme in less than an hour.
Even though this hole could be filled, the fact that it was there in submitted
form, ready to be distributed, created a gaping hole in anyone's trust of the
scheme. When the story appeared in The New York Times , the writing was
on the wall. Public opinion in favour of the Clipper Chip project descended to
less than twenty percent. The project died on the operating table, and even its
creator, Clinton Brooks, was fed up with the project, and threw in the towel.
The original Clipper plan was retracted, and two new initiatives, called
Clipper 2 and Clipper 3 , were promoted. In 1996, Clinton promoted the latter,
which allowed the use of any encryption technology, but reserved the right of