Continuing...

What makes DES, 3DES and other variants good is that they are open source. That is anyone can get the algorithm required to make a message encrypted with DES. Its just the key that is not known. One great thing is that this makes idle hackers work towards breaking it, thereby providing some blanket sense of comfort knowing it can't be broken easily. Right now the government is looking to create a completely hidden method, good in a sense but it will also make people work harder to break it.