> Basically, the NSA asks companies to subtly change their products in undetectable ways: making the random number generator less random, leaking the key someho

> Basically, the NSA asks companies to subtly change their products in undetectable ways: making the random number generator less random, leaking the key somehow, adding a common exponent to a public-key exchange protocol, and so on. If the back door is discovered, it's explained away as a mistake. You have to wonder about the Android SecureRandom weakness just discussed in recent weeks: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/08/some-securerandom-thoughts.html http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2013/08/some-securera... Exactly the situation described by Schneier. Normally I would dismiss this out of hand as pure tin hattery. Scarily, I'm actually wondering.