[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.

[tptacek]

You think someone is going to pretend to be Chris Peikert and submit a backdoored construction as him, and that's going to work?

This is the problem with all these modern NIST contest theories. They're not even movie plots. Your last bit, about them paying someone like Peikert off, isn't even coherent; they could do that with or without the contest.

[mistercheph]

> they could do that with or without the contest

Then why does the contest give you any more confidence that the selection isn't backdoored?

[tptacek]

It's not the contest so much as the reputation of the winning team and the reputations of all the teams who did cryptanalytic work. Wait, I guess that means it is the contest. Well, there's your answer.

People on threads like these are pretending NIST was a shadowy force making secret determinations, but the whole thing happens in the open, and NIST is essentially just proctoring.

A lot of this kind of thing is just people telling on themselves that they don't follow the field and don't trust any cryptography not done by one of the three cryptographers they've ever heard of.

[natch]

>the reputation of the winning team and the reputations of all the teams who did cryptanalytic work

>NIST is essentially just proctoring

Well, there we go. These items are actually good information (to be verified of course). Way better information than questions that seem to miss the concern. Thank you.