The Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) of the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
are a set of publicly announced
standards that the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed for use in computer systems of non-military United States government agencies and contractors.
FIPS standards establish requirements for ensuring computer security and interoperability, and are intended for cases in which suitable industry standards do not already exist.
Many FIPS specifications are modified versions of standards the technical communities use, such as the
American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Specific areas of FIPS standardization
The U.S. government has developed various FIPS specifications to standardize a number of topics including:
* Codes, e.g.,
FIPS county codes or codes to indicate weather conditions or emergency indications. In 1994,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with Weather forecasting, forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, Hydrography, charting the seas, ...
(NOAA) began broadcasting FIPS codes along with their standard weather broadcasts from local stations. These codes identify the type of emergency and the specific geographic area, such as a county, affected by the emergency.
* Encryption standards, such as
AES (FIPS 197), and its predecessor, the withdrawn
56-bit DES (FIPS 46-3).
Data security standards
Some FIPS standards are related to the security of data processing systems. Some of these include the use of
key escrow systems.
Withdrawal of geographic codes
Some examples of FIPS Codes for geographical areas include FIPS 10-4 for
country codes or
region codes and FIPS 5-2 for
state codes. These codes were similar to or comparable with, but not the same as,
ISO 3166, or the
NUTS standard of the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
. In 2002, the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) withdrew several geographic FIPS code standards, including those for countries (FIPS 10-4),
U.S. states (FIPS 5-2), and
counties (
FIPS 6-4).
These are to be replaced by ISO 3166 and
INCITS standards 38 and 31, respectively.
Some of the codes maintain the previous numerical system, particularly for states.
In 2008, NIST withdrew the FIPS 55-3 database.
[ This database included 5-digit numeric place codes for cities, towns, and villages, or other centers of population in the United States. The codes were assigned alphabetically to places within each state, and as a result changed frequently in order to maintain the alphabetical sorting. NIST replaced these codes with the more permanent GNIS Feature ID, maintained by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The GNIS database is the official geographic names repository database for the United States, and is designated the only source of geographic names and locative attributes for use by the agencies of the Federal Government. FIPS 8-6 "Metropolitan Areas" and 9-1 "Congressional Districts of the U.S." were also withdrawn in 2008, to be replaced with INCITS standards 454 and 455, respectively.]
See also
* Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA)
* FIPS 137 (Federal Standard for Linear Predictive Coding)
* FIPS 140 (''Security requirements for cryptography modules'')
* FIPS 153 (3D graphics)
* FIPS 197 ( Rijndael / AES cipher)
* FIPS 199 (''Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems'')
* FIPS 201 (''Personal Identity Verification for Federal Employees and Contractors'')
* List of FIPS region codes
* List of FIPS state codes
References
External links
*
{{Geocoding-systems
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Security compliance
Standards of the United States
Statistical data coding