Federal Information Processing Standard
Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are publicly announced standards developed by the U.S. Federal government for use by all (non-military) government agencies and by government contractors. Many FIPS standards are modified versions of standards used in the wider community (ANSI, IEEE, ISO, etc.)Some FIPS standards originally developed by the U.S. government. For instance, standards for encoding data (e.g. country codes), but more significantly some encryption standards, such as the Data Encryption Standard (FIPS 46) and the Advanced Encryption Standard.
Examples of FIPS standards:
- FIPS two-letter country codes (10-4)
- FIPS place codes (55-3)
- FIPS county codes (6-4)
- FIPS state codes (5-2)