I think one very serious objection to the SkipJack system is that the secrecy prevents us from coming up with Software implementations of the system. Naturally, they don't want that to happen because people start finding easy ways to screw up the encrypted block of key information needed by the government. But regardless of that, software implementations of DES have been extremely useful for everyone. There is probably 10 times as much encryption done using software DES than hardware. Maybe 1000 times as much. The fact is that software protection is much easier for the public to use. They don't need to buy an extra chip for their computer. They just run some software. It's cheaper. More populist. I think this is the most practical and non-inflamatory argument for public access to the algorithm. -Peter Wayner