[geofft]

Yeah I don't think my comparison to fluoridated water is out of line. The entirety of the NSAKEY evidence is "it has NSA in the name." That's not even as strong as the evidence that fluoridated water has minimal health benefits and more risks than the government claims, which is weak evidence but at least it exists.

[woodman]

> The entirety of the NSAKEY evidence is "it has NSA in the name."

Your comparison is out of line because of ridiculous characterizations like this. Microsoft said that it was a backup key, which either means that they have the most poorly implemented scheme for backing up cryptographic materials ever devised, or they don't mean what most people think when they hear the word "backup". Microsoft then claimed that the backup was necessary for passing the export control review, which is a bold lie to tell since the Export Administration Regulations are available for review to everybody. One thing not included in the EAR that might influence Microsoft's conduct in trying to get permission from the USG to reach global customers: executive orders. The government had a hard limit at 56-bits and was proposing that anybody wanting to export crypto beyond that needed to participate in their push for private-key escrow, which they were calling "key-recovery". Recovery... sounds kind of like a backup plan...

I provided links in my response to the parent comment.

[geofft]

None of the links you provided are evidence. They're all signs that something, somewhere, is fishy, so why wouldn't this be fishy too. I can provide you higher-quality links about how we need to stop putting fluoride in the water.

At the very least, retract your claim about how people who don't want fluoride in the water are "loons," and then maybe we can have a good-faith conversation. But if you want to dismiss people with actual science backing their views as loons, I'll dismiss you as a loon, too.