I happened to bring up the Clipper chip in a conversation with a colleague today, where we were discussing the latest NSA-related news, communication privacy, (and of course the Apple 5s).

Looking back at it now, it’s fascinating how much advice the past gives us today. I encourage you to read the words of Whitfield Diffie in his testimony to the US House of Representatives on May 11, 1993:

“I submit to you that the most valuable secret in the world is the secret of democracy; that technology and policy should go hand in hand in guarding that secret; that it must be protected by security in depth.”

– Whitfield Diffie, house testimony May 11, 1993