: From: pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger)

: Indeed, were it not for the government doing everything possible to
: stop them, Qualcomm would have designed strong encryption right in to
: the CDMA cellular phone system they are pioneering. Were it not for
: the NSA and company, cheap encryption systems would be everywhere. As
: it is, they try every trick in the book to stop it. Had it not been
: for them, I'm sure cheap secure phones would be out right now.

In the UK, it's impossible to get approval to attach any crypto device
to the phone network.  (Anything that plugs in to our BT phone sockets
must be approved - for some reason crypto devices just never are...)

I was wondering some time ago how big a market there was for good old-
fashion acoustic coupler technology to build a secure phone :-) ... is
it possible to mask out all the real voice well enough so that none of
it strays into the mouthpiece?  Perhaps a well-sealed coupler attachment
that was as well blocked as possible, then a white noise generator on
the outside to muffle any real speech?