Is Extended Random a Malicious NSA Plot?

FWIW, the operative theory here is that "Extended Random" was designed to work in concert with the DUAL_EC DBRG/RNG, which almost certainly allows "Clyde Frog" to predict all future output on the basis of very few samples.

Tangential forward-looking paranoia:

I've got to wonder if the DUAL_EC debacle only appears so ham-fisted because the public understanding of public key crypto is much further ahead than our understanding of symmetric ciphers. Universities employ armies of mathematicians studying mathematical structures for their own right, whereas shuffling bits isn't sexy.

Conversely, "Clyde Frog" has been studying symmetric ciphers much longer and harder (symmetric is sufficient for nation-state security) and could have a deep symbolic understanding of common symmetric constructions akin to how we see the public-key math. They would then know how to choose constants that admit similar backdoors, and the entropy of "nothing up my sleeve numbers" isn't exactly well quantified.

Rather than a proactive attempt, DUAL_EC could have been a reaction to worries about movement to RNGs based on asymmetric math.

May I just say, I am extremely happy that the NSA has to jump through such incredibly laborious hoops to gain a glimpse into anything, a capability which they would then fail to acknowledge at any price.

This is the OPPOSITE of a dictatorship, where there would simply be a heavy-handed order to put in an explicit, acknowledged back door or be jailed without trial, or executed.

This is what freedom looks like. Enjoy it!

I personally also enjoy the fact that nobody with a few million dollars in spare change can surf the dark web as Dr. evil. But that's just me.

EDIT: this comment is at -1, perhaps people thought I was making a ham-fisted sarcastic statement. I'm speaking literally. You all can keep either your dictatorship, or the society in which someone can commit an act of terrorism for the going black market rate without any repercussions; if it's a false dichotomy, you'll have to explain why.

EDIT 2: this comment is fluctuating wildly (-2, +2, 0, etc) especially since my edit. Thoughtful replies would probably be more helpful than voting here.

> symmetric is sufficient for nation-state security

Is that a verifiable assertion? Would love to read more about it.

Certainly seems like a very well crafted but poorly executed plot to me. The tricky thing is how the hell do you really expose it? There are so many levels of obfuscation both by the people who are putting forth the proposal and the technical details as well.