38 ms·

Long waited decision.

• marshray 12y ago
  Was anyone really waiting?
  • sitkack 12y ago
    Because if NIST waited much longer we couldn't even trust them on the length of a meter.
    • sp332 12y ago
      Surely you mean a foot :)
      • marshray 12y ago
        The foot is defined as 12 inches, each inch is 25.4 millimeters. A meter is defined as "the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second." So the foot is defined in terms of exact rational seconds. NIST offers calibration and measurement services for length. http://nist.gov/calibrations/dimensional_links.cfm http://nist.gov/calibrations/dimensional_links.cfm "Traceability to NIST" http://nist.gov/traceability/index.cfm http://nist.gov/traceability/index.cfm is a big deal to people who care about calibration in the US. NIST and other national calibration labs circulate "transfer standards" amongst each other in order to ensure international agreement.
        • cnvogel 12y ago
          Just to be sure, I'll keep a few aristocrats' appendages in my toolbox, for reference should a real foot needed...
        • sp332 12y ago
          each inch is 25.4 millimeters. Huh, I missed that development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch#Modern_standardisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inch#Modern_standardisation
  • dsl 12y ago
    Yes. Lots of large corporations and government agencies point to NIST standards when making purchasing decisions. So until this got officially updated, vendors were obligated to sell potentiality insecure products.
    • marshray 12y ago
      There's NIST which publishes the definitions, and then there's FIPS which required the availability of Dual-EC DRBG. Following FIPS is nontrivial. I've never heard of anyone doing it that wasn't the US government itself, or a contractor, or a stooge like RSA (which made Dual-EC their default crypto RNG).