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I don't think it's really a conspiracy theory. Recall that before the Dual_EC affair, the reputation of the NSA was that they were a benevolent force that helpe

by mantap 7y ago

I don't think it's really a conspiracy theory. Recall that before the Dual_EC affair, the reputation of the NSA was that they were a benevolent force that helped strengthen DES against differential cryptanalysis before it was publicly discovered. The Dual_EC affair marked a turning point where people started to seriously consider the possiblility that the NSA was a malevolent actor weakening primatives for their own benefit. Also the problem with Dual_EC wasn't just the bad design, but that they had (reportedly) paid RSA corporation to use it.

tptacek 7y ago
I find comments like these absolutely baffling. I learned what the NSA was from Schneier's Applied Cryptography, which I bought when I was a senior in high school, back in 1994. Throughout the book, NSA is depicted as adversarial to cryptography. They're the NSA of the Clipper chip, and of global bans on cryptography, and "this t-shirt is a munition". There has never been a point in my professional life where NSA wasn't the global adversary. Until I started talking about this stuff on HN, it never would have occurred to me that anyone would think NSA had this benevolent reputation. Based on the timing, I suspect that's not because I'm encountering people with different priors about NSA, but rather that I'm talking to people with no priors about NSA.
- mantap 7y ago
  The NSA had a benevolent reputation with regards to primitives, not in general. The thinking was that the NSA would not structurally weaken encryption standards, because USG uses these primitives too, so they would be shooting themselves in the foot by inserting backdoors - don't shit in your own backyard basically.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    The NSA was accused of weakening DES, even though they did the opposite. There has never been a time where the NSA was trusted.
    - unnouinceput 7y ago
      They did this by 2-folds. One strengthening by changing its inner workings so it will be immune to cryptographic attacks, but on the other hand they lowered the key space, which allowed them to brute-force it. Luckily we learn it by now, the longer the key, the better.

by mantap 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago

I find comments like these absolutely baffling. I learned what the NSA was from Schneier's Applied Cryptography, which I bought when I was a senior in high school, back in 1994. Throughout the book, NSA is depicted as adversarial to cryptography. They're the NSA of the Clipper chip, and of global bans on cryptography, and "this t-shirt is a munition". There has never been a point in my professional life where NSA wasn't the global adversary. Until I started talking about this stuff on HN, it never would have occurred to me that anyone would think NSA had this benevolent reputation. Based on the timing, I suspect that's not because I'm encountering people with different priors about NSA, but rather that I'm talking to people with no priors about NSA.

mantap 7y ago
The NSA had a benevolent reputation with regards to primitives, not in general. The thinking was that the NSA would not structurally weaken encryption standards, because USG uses these primitives too, so they would be shooting themselves in the foot by inserting backdoors - don't shit in your own backyard basically.
- tptacek 7y ago
  The NSA was accused of weakening DES, even though they did the opposite. There has never been a time where the NSA was trusted.
  - unnouinceput 7y ago
    They did this by 2-folds. One strengthening by changing its inner workings so it will be immune to cryptographic attacks, but on the other hand they lowered the key space, which allowed them to brute-force it. Luckily we learn it by now, the longer the key, the better.