[throw0101a]

Apparent backstory:

> Some of the backstory here (it's the funniest fucking backstory ever): it's lately been circulating --- though I think this may have been somewhat common knowledge among practitioners, though definitely not to me --- that the "random" seeds for the NIST P-curves, generated in the 1990s by Jerry Solinas at NSA, were simply SHA1 hashes of some variation of the string "Give Jerry a raise".

> At the time, the "pass a string through SHA1" thing was meant to increase confidence in the curve seeds; the idea was that SHA1 would destroy any possible structure in the seed, so NSA couldn't have selected a deliberately weak seed. Of course, NIST/NSA then set about destroying its reputation in the 2000's, and this explanation wasn't nearly enough to quell conspiracy theories.

> But when Jerry Solinas went back to reconstruct the seeds, so NIST could demonstrate that the seeds really were benign, he found that he'd forgotten the string he used!

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37784499#unv_37784770