>However, I really want to say that it was never a project for the CIA as some keep saying. Probably not a rubber stamp with "CIA" on top of the project docume

>However, I really want to say that it was never a project for the CIA as some keep saying. Probably not a rubber stamp with "CIA" on top of the project documentation, but someone on the team could have been talking to the intelligence community and relaying specs or meeting details. It's an obvious target just because of Intel's ubiquity and they are based in the US. You're kind of a bad intelligence agency if you don't try for backdoors to this level on processors running millions of devices world-wide. And the intelligence community has actively tried to stop good encryption from spreading while promoting bad encryption/RNG (forgive me for not knowing the details), and so it's pretty clear they are willing to compromise worldwide standards in favor of gaining an edge.