The US government is so paranoid about computer security that it doesn’t want it falling into just anyone’s hands – remember the National Security Agency threw out the most secure algorithm and insisted that the definition of the National Bureau of Standards Data Encryption Standard be a less secure one so that it would still be able to crack messages if the need arose a few years back? – now Xerox Corp has come up with the $5,000 Xerox Encryption Unit, which sits between each personal computer or terminal and the network – so that it costs a big fortune to make an extensive network secure, without any modification of the network; if anyone tries to tamper with it, it wipes its security instructions and sets off an alarm and a flashing red light – but the Security Agency has to approve every sale, and it can be bought only for government work.
