[qzx_pierri]

I recommend this video by Computerphile - He talks about how NIST may have been pressured into enforcing compromised (backdoored?) cryptography methods as a standard - Dual_EC_DRBG to be exact. He also gives a super cool/intuitive breakdown on how this came to be. It will definitely grow some food for thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nybVFJVXbww

[diggan]

Small summary, courtesy of Wikipedia which makes a stronger claim than "may have been pressured":

> In September 2013, both The Guardian and The New York Times reported that NIST allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to insert a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator called Dual EC DRBG into NIST standard SP 800-90 that had a kleptographic backdoor that the NSA can use to covertly predict the future outputs of this pseudorandom number generator. [...] the NSA worked covertly to get its own version of SP 800-90 approved for worldwide use in 2006. The whistle-blowing document states that "eventually, NSA became the sole editor".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_of_Standard...

[tptacek]

Dual EC was not the product of a contest. The NIST PQC algorithms are all designed by academic cryptographers, many of them not US nationals.

[natch]

And chosen by NIST…

[tptacek]

And? Finish that thought.

[natch]

You are tptacek; I believe you know exactly what I meant. But to indulge you, do you think we can know that the selection process is not comprised?

[tptacek]

Explain what the compromised selection process does here. NIST doesn't control the submissions.

[immibis]

Seems pretty obvious no?

1. Pretend to be someone else and enter a backdoored algorithm. Or pressure someone to enter a backdoored algorithm for you. Or just give them the algorithm for the reward of being the winner.

2. Be NIST, and choose that algorithm.

[natch]

Your question presupposes a claim that the selection process is compromised. I'm not saying it is. I just wonder how we know it's not.

In NIST's position one could analyze the submissions for vulnerabilities to closely held (non-public) attacks, then select submissions having those vulnerabilities.