4 ms·
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
by 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 agoThe 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 agoThey 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.