[jeroenhd]

The reason the government wants FIPS is that it's been verified to be secure according to the national agencies. Enforcing that that security and then putting all if your sensitive traffic in the hands of one key on one box directly contradicts the security requirements FIPS is intended to ensure.

I don't expect the government to have different departments work together around this stuff, but knowing the technical details, the end result is still impractical and stupid. The end result of stupid rules and requirements is that the real world application of technology is stupid, as we have probably all experienced one way or another during our lives.

Just because there's a real business need for something, doesn't stop that from being silly. Correcting the silliness is clearly not a technological challenge, we'll have to wait for politicians and managers to do that, but the end result is still a confusing and contradictory mess.