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NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

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Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#331

Post by 7373737373 »

woodruffw wrote: post #284
7373737373 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the general notion of "conspiracy theory" ever carried any positive value? It only seems to exist to discredit "doubters against the majority consensus" without substance. But I guess words like "crank" wouldn't even exist if there weren't many people like it, so it carries some "definitional" value. Because they show total disregard for someones opinion (in a more formal way: "unlike you/them, i completely agree…

Our notion of "crank"/conspiracy theory is a logical consequence of "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." When that evidence isn't provided all that remains is an exceptionally convoluted explanation, generally involving more parties than necessary, hence "conspiracy."

These words probably also tend to describe people who rather hold a belief in these theories, instead of treating them as statements without evidence (which both sides probably should, because there is no evidence against it).

On the other hand, discussing statements without evidence (even if they are not presented as beliefs), has some (opportunity?) cost, which the "theorists" are willing to pay

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#332

Post by chmod775 »

voz_ wrote: post #317
efitz wrote: post #310

Why don’t we invert FOIA? Why don’t we require that all internal communications and records be public, available within 24 hours on the web, and provide a very painful mechanism involving significant personal effort of high level employees for every single communication or document that is to be redacted in some way? The key is requiring manual, personal (non-delegatable) effort on the part of senior bureaucrats, and…

Quoted post unavailable.

Qualifiers such as evil aren't really useful when there hasn't been a country acting honorably on that stage for a long time, if ever.

Here's a phrasing that might be more appropriate:

"Since we're backstabbers and scoundrels, we should exercise caution around each other."

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#333

Post by throwaway654329 »

tptacek wrote: post #277
throwaway654329 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely not in that place. We clearly disagree on a few points. The issues raised in the blog post aren’t just about NIST mishandling the FOIA. By reducing it to the lawsuit, this is already a bad faith engagement. The blog post is primarily about the history of NSA sabotage as well as contemporary efforts, including (NIST’s) failures to stop this sabotage. Finally it finishes the recent history by raising th…

There's nothing "bad faith" about it. The tweet is supportive of the lawsuit, and not supportive of Bernstein's weird, heavily-telegraphed, long-predicted claims that a NIST contest he opted to participate in was corrupted by dint of not prioritizing his own designs. Your bit about the "obviously Jewish family name" thing is itself risible, and you should be embarrassed for trying to make it a thing.

Your augment that the selection doesn’t pick his designs doesn’t square with SPHINCS+ winning, and with others remaining in the running. His former PhD student won with Kyber. Bernstein did very well here and you’re misleading people by suggesting he had his ass handed to him.

He has published (and it is linked from the blog) his views on how to run cryptographic contests before their recent selection finished (late). His comments are not simply the result of the round three announcement.

As to the offensive meme, I note that you don’t even dispute the punching down about mental health. Gross.

Bernstein is a German-Jewish name. These names were given and in some cases forced on people in history to give a signal to others, usually negative. This is a hint, not a fact of his beliefs. My understanding is that he does come from a Jewish family. I won’t presume to speak for Bernstein’s beliefs, just that I see something obviously tense and probably wrong.

It’s your choice to not care to comment about the antisemitic connotations that I raised. My point was that for some people this is impossible to not see. It is highly offensive given the context. Now I understand that you refuse to do so when shown. Also extremely gross.

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#334

Post by trasz »

aliqot wrote: post #10
throwaway654329 wrote: post #4

The history in this blog post is excellently researched on the topic of NSA and NIST cryptographic sabotage. It presents some hard won truths that many are uncomfortable to discuss, let alone to actively resist. The author of the blog post is also well known for designing and releasing many cryptographic systems as free software. There is a good chance that your TLS connections are secured by some of these designs. O…

Given his track record, and the actual meat of this suit, I think he has a good chance. - He is an expert in the domain - He made a lawful request - He believes he's experiencing an obstruction of his rights I don't see anything egregious here. Being critical of your government is a protected right for USA. Everyone gets a moment to state their case if they'd like to make an accusation. Suing sounds offensive, but th…

>Being critical of your government is a protected right for USA. Everyone gets a moment to state their case if they'd like to make an accusation.

Unless a kangaroo “FISA court” says you can’t - in which case you’re screwed, and can’t even tell anyone about the “sentence” if it included a gag order. Still better than getting droned I suppose.

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#335

Post by gorgoiler »

efitz wrote: post #310

Why don’t we invert FOIA? Why don’t we require that all internal communications and records be public, available within 24 hours on the web, and provide a very painful mechanism involving significant personal effort of high level employees for every single communication or document that is to be redacted in some way? The key is requiring manual, personal (non-delegatable) effort on the part of senior bureaucrats, and…

The old Abe rhetoric was powerful but it always felt like it was only hitting home on two of the three points. Obviously government, by definition really, is of the people. The much better parts were for the people and by the people.

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#336

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #309
petre wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Dual EC, but ECDSA is used (by law) in EU smart tachograph systems for signing data.

ECDSA is almost universally used. It's deeply suboptimal in a variety of ways. But that's because it was designed in the 1990s, not because it's backdoored. This isn't a new line of argumentation for Bernstein; he has also implied that AES is Rijndael specifically because it was so commonly implemented with secret-dependent lookups (S-boxes, in the parlance); he's counting on a lay audience not knowing the distinctio…

[deleted]

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#337

Post by nix23 »

voz_ wrote: post #317
efitz wrote: post #310

Why don’t we invert FOIA? Why don’t we require that all internal communications and records be public, available within 24 hours on the web, and provide a very painful mechanism involving significant personal effort of high level employees for every single communication or document that is to be redacted in some way? The key is requiring manual, personal (non-delegatable) effort on the part of senior bureaucrats, and…

Quoted post unavailable.

Not sure if the US with it's torture-base aka Guantanamo and torture-safe-houses around the world really has the right to call someone else "evil", i don't mean that as "whataboutissm" but that human lives are not more "worth" in the US as in Mainland China

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#338

Post by throwaway654329 »

vasco wrote: post #329
tptacek wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Of course NSA spent a lot of time and effort analyzing algorithms without making their findings public. That is their literal job. The peer review NIST is refereeing happened in the open. When people broke SIDH, they didn't whisper it anyone's ear: they published a paper. That's how this stuff works. Bernstein doesn't have a paper to show you; all he has is innuendo. How you know his argument is as limp as a coo…

> he actually stoops to suggesting that NSA might have bribed one of the members of the PQC teams I don't know anyone in the teams to judge their moral fiber, but I'm 100% sure the NSA is not above what is suggested and your weird outrage at the suggestion seems surprising knowing what is public knowledge about how the NSA operates. There are arguments here about NSA pressure on NIST. You miss the point because appar…

It can be everybody involved. It should include NIST based on the history alone.

Some of the commentary on this topic is by people who also denied DUAL_EC until (correctly) conceding that it was actually a backdoor, actually deployed, and that it is embarrassing for both NSA and NIST.

This sometimes looks like reactionary denialism. It’s a safe position that forces others to do a lot of work, it seems good faith with some people and not so much with others.

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#339

Post by petre »

tptacek wrote: post #309
petre wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not Dual EC, but ECDSA is used (by law) in EU smart tachograph systems for signing data.

ECDSA is almost universally used. It's deeply suboptimal in a variety of ways. But that's because it was designed in the 1990s, not because it's backdoored. This isn't a new line of argumentation for Bernstein; he has also implied that AES is Rijndael specifically because it was so commonly implemented with secret-dependent lookups (S-boxes, in the parlance); he's counting on a lay audience not knowing the distinctio…

I don't care about his theories. What matters that US export controls on encryption were reduced due to his previous lawsuit and he has offered alternative encryption in the public domain.

Re: NSA, NIST, and post-quantum crypto: my second lawsuit against the US government

#340

Post by AndyMcConachie »

Natsu wrote: post #181
jcranmer wrote: post #43

If anyone is curious, the courtlistener link for the lawsuit is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64872195/bernstein-v-na... (And somebody has already kindly uploaded the documents to RECAP, so it costs you nothing to access.) Aside: I really wish people would link to court documents whenever they talk about an ongoing lawsuit.

> Aside: I really wish people would link to court documents whenever they talk about an ongoing lawsuit. I just want to second that and thank you for the link. Most reporting is just horribly bad at covering legal stuff because all the stuff that makes headlines that people click on is mostly nonsense.

And a big thank you to the wonderful people at the Free Law Project for giving us the ability to find and link to this stuff. They're a non-profit and they accept donations. (hint hint)
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