Skipjack (cipher) - in Pop Culture

In Pop Culture

An algorithm named Skipjack forms part of the back-story to Dan Brown's 1998 novel Digital Fortress. In Brown's novel, Skipjack is proposed as the new public-key encryption standard, along with a back door secretly inserted by the NSA ("a few lines of cunning programming") which would have allowed them to decrypt Skipjack using a secret password and thereby "read the world's email". When details of the cipher are publicly released, programmer Greg Hale discovers and announces details of the backdoor. This is arguably similar to the Dual EC DRBG NSA controversy.

Additionally, in the Half-Life 2 modification Dystopia, the "encryption" program used in cyberspace apparently uses both Skipjack and Blowfish algorithms.

Skipjack is also mentioned in the novels Hostile Intent and Shock Warning, both by author Michael Walsh.