"I'd be pleased to. First of all, it is only one opinion that the NSA can crack DES; it has never been proven or disproven. When DES was first introduced some theoreticians felt that NSA had compromised the original integrity of IBM's Lucifer encryp- tion project. I am not qualified to comment either way, but the reduction of the key length, and the functional feedback mecha- nisms were less stringent than the original. If this is true, then we have to ask ourselves, why? Why would the NSA want a weaker system?" A number of heads in the hearing room nodded in agreement with the question; others merely acknowledged that it was NSA bashing time again. Hammacher continued. "There is one theory that suggests that the NSA, as the largest eavesdropping operation in the world wanted to make sure that they could still listen in on messages once they have been encrypted. The NSA has neither confirmed or denied these reports. If that is true, then we must ask our- selves, if DES is so weak, why does the NSA have the ultimate say on export control. The export of DES is restricted by the Muni- tions Control, Department of State, and they rely upon DoD and the NSA for approval. "The export controls suggest that maybe NSA cannot decrypt DES, and there is some evidence to support that. For example, in 1985, the Department of Treasury wanted to extend the validation of DES for use throughout the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System and member banks. The NSA put a lot of political muscle behind an effort to have DES deaffirmed and replaced with newer encryption algorithms. Treasury argued that they had already adapted DES, their constituents had spent millions on DES equip- ment for EFT and it would be entirely too cumbersome and expen- sive to make a change now. Besides, they asked, what's wrong with DES? They never got an answer to that question, and thus they won the battle and DES is still the approved encryption methodology for banks. It was never established whether DES was too strong or too weak for NSA's taste.