4 ms·

Probably the NSA...

russellbeattie 4y ago
In case people don't know this story, or worse, believe the conspiracy theories, here's what happened with the development of DES: > "According to Steven Levy, IBM Watson researchers discovered differential cryptanalytic attacks in 1974 and were asked by the NSA to keep the technique secret. Coppersmith explains IBM's secrecy decision by saying, "that was because [differential cryptanalysis] can be a very powerful tool, used against many schemes, and there was concern that such information in the public domain could adversely affect national security." Levy quotes Walter Tuchman: "[t]hey asked us to stamp all our documents confidential... We actually put a number on each one and locked them up in safes, because they were considered U.S. government classified. They said do it. So I did it". Bruce Schneier observed that "It took the academic community two decades to figure out that the NSA 'tweaks' actually improved the security of DES." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard
- CrazyStat 4y ago
  In case people don't know this story, here's what happened with the development of Dual_EC_DBRG: > Sometime before its first known publication in 2004, a possible kleptographic backdoor was discovered with the Dual_EC_DRBG's design, with the design of Dual_EC_DRBG having the unusual property that it was theoretically impossible for anyone but Dual_EC_DRBG's designers (NSA) to confirm the backdoor's existence. Bruce Schneier concluded shortly after standardization that the "rather obvious" backdoor (along with other deficiencies) would mean that nobody would use Dual_EC_DRBG.[4] The backdoor would allow NSA to decrypt for example SSL/TLS encryption which used Dual_EC_DRBG as a CSPRNG.[5] > Members of the ANSI standard group, to which Dual_EC_DRBG was first submitted, were aware of the exact mechanism of the potential backdoor and how to disable it,[6] but did not take sufficient steps to unconditionally disable the backdoor or to widely publicize it. The general cryptographic community was initially not aware of the potential backdoor, until Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson's publication, or of Certicom's Daniel R. L. Brown and Scott Vanstone's 2005 patent application describing the backdoor mechanism. > In September 2013, The New York Times reported that internal NSA memos leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that the NSA had worked during the standardization process to eventually become the sole editor of the Dual_EC_DRBG standard,[7] and concluded that the Dual_EC_DRBG standard did indeed contain a backdoor for the NSA.[8] As response, NIST stated that "NIST would not deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard."[9] According to the New York Times story, the NSA spends $250 million per year to insert backdoors in software and hardware as part of the Bullrun program.[10] A Presidential advisory committee subsequently set up to examine NSA's conduct recommended among other things that the US government "fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards".[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG
  - russellbeattie 4y ago
    Ah, nice. I was thinking along the lines of the 1960s, as that's when the seeds in the algorithm above were created. So I assumed the comment was about the NSA messing with it back then. Didn't think about recent events.

Probably the NSA...

In case people don't know this story, or worse, believe the conspiracy theories, here's what happened with the development of DES: > "According to Steven Levy, IBM Watson researchers discovered differential cryptanalytic attacks in 1974 and were asked by the NSA to keep the technique secret. Coppersmith explains IBM's secrecy decision by saying, "that was because [differential cryptanalysis] can be a very powerful tool, used against many schemes, and there was concern that such information in the public domain could adversely affect national security." Levy quotes Walter Tuchman: "[t]hey asked us to stamp all our documents confidential... We actually put a number on each one and locked them up in safes, because they were considered U.S. government classified. They said do it. So I did it". Bruce Schneier observed that "It took the academic community two decades to figure out that the NSA 'tweaks' actually improved the security of DES." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

CrazyStat 4y ago
In case people don't know this story, here's what happened with the development of Dual_EC_DBRG: > Sometime before its first known publication in 2004, a possible kleptographic backdoor was discovered with the Dual_EC_DRBG's design, with the design of Dual_EC_DRBG having the unusual property that it was theoretically impossible for anyone but Dual_EC_DRBG's designers (NSA) to confirm the backdoor's existence. Bruce Schneier concluded shortly after standardization that the "rather obvious" backdoor (along with other deficiencies) would mean that nobody would use Dual_EC_DRBG.[4] The backdoor would allow NSA to decrypt for example SSL/TLS encryption which used Dual_EC_DRBG as a CSPRNG.[5] > Members of the ANSI standard group, to which Dual_EC_DRBG was first submitted, were aware of the exact mechanism of the potential backdoor and how to disable it,[6] but did not take sufficient steps to unconditionally disable the backdoor or to widely publicize it. The general cryptographic community was initially not aware of the potential backdoor, until Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson's publication, or of Certicom's Daniel R. L. Brown and Scott Vanstone's 2005 patent application describing the backdoor mechanism. > In September 2013, The New York Times reported that internal NSA memos leaked by Edward Snowden indicated that the NSA had worked during the standardization process to eventually become the sole editor of the Dual_EC_DRBG standard,[7] and concluded that the Dual_EC_DRBG standard did indeed contain a backdoor for the NSA.[8] As response, NIST stated that "NIST would not deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard."[9] According to the New York Times story, the NSA spends $250 million per year to insert backdoors in software and hardware as part of the Bullrun program.[10] A Presidential advisory committee subsequently set up to examine NSA's conduct recommended among other things that the US government "fully support and not undermine efforts to create encryption standards".[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG
- russellbeattie 4y ago
  Ah, nice. I was thinking along the lines of the 1960s, as that's when the seeds in the algorithm above were created. So I assumed the comment was about the NSA messing with it back then. Didn't think about recent events.