The Clipper Chip
SUMMARY
The government's official request for a key to every phone. Rejected loudly — then, per Snowden, taken quietly.
FULL DOSSIER
The 1993-96 Clipper proposal: NSA-designed encryption with government key escrow for every device. Cryptographers broke its LEAF scheme (Blaze, 1994), industry revolted, and it died — after which, per Snowden documents, the NSA pursued the same access via covert standards influence (Dual_EC_DRBG) and corporate programs. The node documents the pattern: the front-door request refused, the back door built anyway.
SOURCES ON RECORD
01Blaze, 'Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard' (1994)
02Dual_EC_DRBG reporting (2013)
CROSS-REFERENCED FILES
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