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NIST and the NSA should be shunned when it comes to setting crypto standards (apart from setting their own FIPS and such for government users) because they've d
by anonsivalley652 7y ago
NIST and the NSA should be shunned when it comes to setting crypto standards (apart from setting their own FIPS and such for government users) because they've demonstrated their corruption and efforts to work against the public interest. Instead, an international nonprofit that encourages transparency and academic adversarial due-diligence across the whole lifecycle of standards would be a better vehicle for crypto standards, like an Underwriters Laboratory or similar. (NESSIE-ish but even broader.) It's impossible to remove gamification and attempts to infiltrate standards bodies, but it's important to remove both appearances of condoning their subversion and proactively mitigating all actual infiltration should a fellow, contributor or other affiliate be working on behalf of a foreign government. It's not a "all gubberment bad" thing, but particular parts of government who's culture has infected the integrity of the process to deliver modern, reliable cryptography as a net commonwealth good, but they've chosen instead to create more liabilities and doubt that defeat and outweigh the "benefit" they brought to the table for users outside of government.