
Qualcomm had spare cycles in the DSPs for their new CDMA digital
cellular phones. They wanted to put strong crypto into them since they
had the capacity. The government decided to "discourage" them.

Really, none of this stuff is especially hard. All you need for a true
private phone is an ISDN codec, a vocoder (either a chip or
software), an encryptor (a chip is fine, but software is more than
fast enough), a V.32 or V.32bis modem module, and maybe a
microcontroller to run the whole thing. Its easy to do, its cheap. And
any "normal" company trying to put one out will likely get a visit
from the boys in the dark suits from Washington, just like Qualcomm
did. I suspect that companies like Cylink are tolerated because their
products are too expensive.

However, no law yet stops one from building really private phones, in
spite of the hints the administration has made when discussing the new
"crime bill" and in connection with the Clipper/Skipjack Big Brother
chip. Someone out there WILL build a unit to do all this. Better yet,
prehaps someone will produce a package that turns any 486 box with a
sound card into a secure phone.

--
Perry Metzger		pmetzger@shearson.com