Ever since Craig Rowland posted his piece "New Encryption" to sci.crypt there has been some discussion of our company, Secured Communications Technologies, Inc, and on encryption algorithm, NEA.      I spoke to Craig at length on 4/21/93 and we covered a lot of ground.  Some of the information in the posting requires some clarification, and I would like to answer some of the questions raised on sci.crypt.      SCT is a small company based in Silver Spring Maryland.  Our two main products at this time are a PC based secure communications program called SECOM and a general purpose encryption chip which uses the NEA algorithm developed for SECOM.      SECOM provides an encrypted secure communication link between two PC's connected over dial up telephone lines.  It supports simultaneous bi-directional file transfer and keyboard to screen "chat".  It has its own proprietary communications protocol which is tightly integrated to the encryption.  All though it is a packetized link, the data stream appears to be continuous because the packet boundaries are hidden.      When SECOM was initially developed, it was implemented to use DES encryption.  A business decision was made to seek export approval for the product because it was perceived that the overseas market was a large one and provided a good marketing opportunity.      We soon found out that we would NEVER be granted general export approval for anything using DES.  All though the reason for this was never explicitly stated, it seems to have something to do with secret government to government agreements which are still in effect.      In any event, the decision was made to develop a new and different algorithm which would take the place of DES.  This was the reason NEA (New Encryption Algorithm) was born.      At this time NEA is being held as a trade secret.  The preliminary work of patenting it has begun, and the plan is to make it public once the patent process is complete.  All though one can make certain legal arguments for keeping it an ongoing secret, I think in the case of an encryption algorithm it is necessary to let people "shoot at it" over an extended period of time to prove its worth.      In order to get export approval for SECOM/NEA, it was necessary to go through NSA and to reveal to them the details of the program and algorithm.  This was done only AFTER we had a finished product to submit.      Let me state unequivocally that there is NO "back door" to the program or the algorithm.  Secured Communications Technologies is a closely held private company and NSA/FBI/CIA/NIST/WHATEVER has NO financial interest in any way whatsoever with the company or any of the people involved.      From a practical business standpoint, we are interested in selling chips and software (hopefully in large quantities) and a back door to the encryption, if found out, could destroy our credibility and our business.      With the encryption algorithm approved for export, we set out to talk to a number of potential customers for encryption products and systems.  We were able to identify several common threads of functionality requirements.  This led to the design of a chip with the encryption algorithm "cast in silicon" and certain other capabilities added so that the chip could fulfill the broad range of requirements that we identified.      We are strongly opposed to the clipper/capstone chips.  In a press release today, our president, Dr. Stephen Bryen stated:            "It seems as if the government has an unlimited source      of funds to use to push its new bugged chips on the American      Public.  But do we not understand how the National Security      Agency, which is not supposed to be involved in domestic      spying, can fund the development of a commercial chip      intended to accommodate U.S. government domestic spying      activities."