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Since the source code could not help with decryption and the file was trivial to decrypt anyway, the NSA was either playing four dimensional chess that requires
by TomMckenny 6y ago
Since the source code could not help with decryption and the file was trivial to decrypt anyway, the NSA was either playing four dimensional chess that requires making a pointless midnight phone call or it's actually fallible.
Rather than fairly justified suspicion of the NSA, we might want to apply Hanlon's razor in this case.
- Talanes 6y agoAgreed, the NSA is a large organization with many moving parts. If the guys who suddenly find themselves needing to break encryption have natural talents that lend themselves more toward tracking people down and talking things out of them, it makes perfect sense for them to start chasing some weird leads.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoI’ve had the pleasure of working in some organisations that had mountains of legacy applications that didn’t always have any source code. When I’ve had to fix bugs that involved those apps, reverse engineering them was always tedious and time consuming, and having the original engineers on hand to answer questions always sped things up. Regardless of the NSAs technical capabilities, it seems all he helped them do was something they could have done without his help, only faster.
- KMnO4 6y agoI think the NSA was rather asking him if there was a backdoor. A phone call will always be cheaper and faster than bruteforcing [current decade] cryptography.