[sbf501]

I'm amazed how close we came to the CLIPPER chip. That would have undermined literally everything digital. Thanks to everyone who helped kill that.

[watersb]

Was CLIPPER the hardware that would allow The Government to snoop on all encrypted traffic, or was it the hardware that would allow a remote kill switch on unlicensed digital "media"?

I still get it confused with the previous CLIPPER chip, which was a hardware accelerator for advanced database query tools.

[AdamH12113]

CLIPPER was encryption. I don’t remember anything about remote kill switches for media (sounds too advanced for 1994), but there was also discussion in the 1990s about the V-chip, which was parental controls for broadcast TV. The technology was implemented but never amounted to much. Turns out parents weren’t any better at programming their TVs than they were their VCRs.

[sbf501]

Things were symmetrically encrypted, but the government had an additional decrypt key for EVERY chip made.