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It's because it's another conspiracy theory unsupported by evidence.

The encryption algorithms in CNSA are broadly accepted by the security community. Just saying "NSA backdoor" is a cheap shot.



> unsupported by evidence

Depending on what you accept as an evidence, but this theory is surely supported by precedent(s?) [0]

Just saying “another conspiracy theory” is a cheap shot : conspiracy are bad and should be fought. Theories are a useful process to make knowledge advance. Conspiracy theories are often discussed in an awful way on social medias, can’t HN do better than just downvoted them ?

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwal...



See this is a great example of the problem.

1) Did NSA modify Cisco routers? Yes

2) Did NSA get a backdoor in Dual EC_DRBG? Yes

3) Did NSA get a backdoor in the CNSA algorithms? There is no evidence to suggest they have and plenty the other way.

The original claim was (3) but the "NSA does stuff" thing overrides any attempt at discussion of that specific piece of misinformation.


>It's because it's another conspiracy theory unsupported by evidence.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all, it's nuts. But my understanding is that the NSA backdooring protocols is totally supported by evidence? We saw it in the Snowden revelations? RSA being the company nobody will ever trust again?

Is that all wrong somehow?


> backdooring protocols is totally supported by evidence

It's important to be very precise.

I think you might be confusing backdooring specific pieces of software produced by RSA-the-company (specifically things using Dual EC_DRBG) with the RSA algorthim that company is named after, which is included in the CNSA.

Dual EC_DRBG was a bad algorithm which many people had serious doubts about from the start - and indeed it was backdoored by NSA. That is different to the algorithms in CNSA which (as I said earlier) are well regarded by the same security researchers.

There is no evidence (or serious claims) that the RSA-algorithm is backdoored.


get it from the horse's mouth, as they say... instead of baselessly pontificating on HN and not understanding the diff between algorithm and implementation


not the algorithm. the various implementations of it. evidence? ask a friend.




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