ABSTRACT
In the early 1970s, the Data Encryption Standard (DES) became a Federal Information Processing Standard1,2 (FIPS). This happened with little fanfare and even less public notice. In fact, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the notion of the general public having an influence on U.S. cryptographic policy was utterly absurd. It should be noted that in the days before personal computers were ubiquitous, the force of a FIPS was immense, given the purchasing power of the U.S. government. Nowadays, the power of a FIPS has a much lesser effect on the profitability of computer companies given the strength of the consumer market.
