> DES is a fairly recent US government standard correct? The US government
No, DES is about 20 years old.
> has proposed that all encryption methods have back doors so that the
> government can get into them, correct? Would they have designed DES in such
> a way that it is unbreakable, or in such a way that a person who knew how to
> get into it, can do so at will.
Actually its main weakness is that it has a 56 bit key length, which is
generally considered too short. DES has been intensivly studied, and seems
not to have any back doors (of course you never know that for sure).
Jim