Re: Clipper Revived?

[Robert Rothenburg Walking-Owl <rrothenb@ic.sunysb.edu>]

> 
>      From Edupage:
>      
>      REPLACEMENT FOR CLIPPER
>      AT&T and VLSI Technology Inc. will collaborate to develop microchips 
>      that use a triple-strength version of DES (data encryption standard), 
>      which previously had been rejected by the National Security Agency. 
>      VLSI is the designated contractor to make the government-favored 
>      Clipper chips, but this latest announcement reveals their doubts over 
>      whether there's a market for the Clipper. "These companies have 
>      basically made the determination that Clipper is dead and there's 
>      going to be the proliferation of encryption anyway, so they might as 
>      well take advantage of it," says one observer, who predicts the market 
>      for such technology "could reach hundreds of millions" of dollars in 
>      annual sales by the end of the decade. (Wall Street Journal 1/31/95 
>      A3)

So, the question is, are these chips escrowed like Clipper (ie, are they
abandoning the standard because the phones are awful)? Or are they abandon-
ing the escrowed encryption altogether?