[philodeon]

I was making the point that if you have subverted the NIST to do your bidding in what appears to be a neutral way, obviously you’re going to have some feel-good projects in your portfolio. Otherwise, the folks that the Soviets called “useful idiots” wouldn’t have anything to point to to exonerate them.

[some_furry]

You're all over the place except where the discussion was actually taking place.

[philodeon]

Ok, let me be clear: the NIST is a proxy organization for the NSA. The declassified internal history of the NSA makes it clear that they were subverting the NIST back when they were still called the National Bureau of Standards.

Just because NIST engages in some wholesome activities doesn’t mean that their core purpose isn’t to do the bidding of the NSA.

[grayhatter]

> Just because NIST engages in some wholesome activities doesn’t mean that their core purpose isn’t to do the bidding of the NSA.

Their core purpose is to recommend standards that everyone can use, and anyone who wants to work with the US government is expected to follow. They have to pick standards for everything, but can't have experts in everything on staff, so are required to defer to other experts willing to help. The NSA took advantage of them. I find the idea that NIST wants to be a lackey to the NSA, stupid. It's ignorance and incompetence that lead NIST to getting duped by the NSA. The problem is, not getting dupe is literally, their *only* job.

It's like hiring a firefighter to protect you and then they set your house on fire; it doesn't matter so much why you don't have a house anymore... you just sure a hell are never letting him near anything important every again.

You're allowed to treat gross incompetence as equivalent to intentional malice, without needing to make something up about how it was intentional.