E-mail Privacy

[John Otto]

In article <1991Jun4.194406.1366 at qualcomm.com>, rdippold at cancun.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold) writes...
>In article <1991Jun4.144731.685 at forwiss.uni-passau.de> baier at unipas.fmi.uni-passau.de (Joern Baier) writes:
>>From the crypt manual page:
>>CRYPT(1)                 USER COMMANDS                   CRYPT(1)

>Crypt makes use of the Data Encryption Standard (DES), an encryption technology
>that is supposedly unbreakable without spending nearly infinite amounts of
>computer time (although many believe that the National Security Agency
>purposely weakend the specifications to the point where they _can_ decode it).

My readings at the time indicated that the whole purpose of DES is the same 
as Biden's  - to make sure Big Bro doesn't miss anything.  It was 
intentionally weaker than the then state of the art in encryption.