[grayhatter]

I'm not making a falsifiable argument. I'm stating that given their history, and current behavior I don't trust NIST and I don't think anyone else should either. They are keeping secrets around a new crypto system, the last time they did that it was to hide a known-broken crypto system.

The controversy over the PQC is the topic at hand. If they'd selected a cipher that didn't carry the objections of someone who's reputation I trust more than NIST. Then I'd trust NIST's decision, by proxy.

[tptacek]

Again: it's not their cryptosystem. They didn't design it. They had no hand in its design, or in any of the research that led up to it. They proctored a competition in which everyone involved was unsurprised by the outcome. A pretty big chunk of every academic cryptographer in the world participated, and if you had put the whole thing to a vote, 60% chance you'd have still gotten Kyber and like I don't know 35% chance you'd have gotten SABER.

That's what's so crazymaking about this. People who actually pay attention to cryptography know all this, so much so that Bernstein sounds deranged to many of them. But he's counting on you not knowing any of it. Which is to say: he's preying on your ignorance. It's a bad scene.

[grayhatter]

I know the backstory. I know there's no real evidence or proof against Kyber's real security, only questions. I've also read the full email threads that I was able to find. Nearly everyone looks like a shithead. I'm sure they're fine people in real life, but there are so many emails that are covered with contempt for the person they're replying to. Trustworthy people don't act like that. > But he's counting on you not knowing any of it. Which is to say: he's preying on your ignorance. It's a bad scene.

I know all of that, I also know I'm years away from the maths to understand the crypto and decide for myself. So, I'm forced to have an opinion because friends and employers will expect me to have one; like them, I'm also forced to operate on trust. Help me with this one? Because my problem is, the only person in the whole scene with ethos is djb. Not a single person in the stack has their name on *anything* that would allow me to trust them given their previous behavior.

So who's the non-deranged person that can put their ego aside, long enough to go point by point down the "deranged man"'s "psychotic rant". Where something everyone who's paying attention can point to and say, djb has stopped taking his crazy pills, here's what reality looks like. Because I went looking for it when I first heard about it, his blog has been linked to from HN many times. But no one has linked to a single other person. I agree with you, the arguments he's making are barely convincing. But one one side, I have a well respected cryptographer (who might want to consider or respond to the accusations he's becoming a bit eccentric) saying hey, y'all are fucking it up. Directly to the people who actively did something ethically inexcusable. Who not only appear to following the exact same pattern as last time, but no one is willing to put their name and time on the line?

What am I supposed to do? Get on board because NIST recommended it already, and there's the RFC for it, so why bother fighting? Just trust the current or next US administration won't do something I object to... like trying to back door crypto... again... I know you'd never actually make that recommendation... well I hope at least. But really; what would you expect me, someone who still trust djb even though his eccentric writing is desperate for an editor, and also, someone who actively believes the people in charge of NIST are ethically questionable. What should I do? where's the evidence that would convince me to switch from believing the guy working to improve foss crypto, to the org with a history of delivering backdoor'd crypto.

[tptacek]

You're making my point for me. Nobody in the whole world is asking for you to take NIST's word for anything.

The problem here is that literally the only information you have to work with is Daniel Bernstein, a notorious standards crank. The names of the cryptographers vouching for Kyber don't mean anything to you. Peter Schwabe? Leo Ducas? Chris Peikert? You're not a cryptographer, who could reasonably expect you to know who those people are?

And Bernstein knows it, and plays it to the hilt.

But I already pointed this out. You keep bringing it back to NIST, but I keep telling you: if you simply let a panel of PQC contestants with credible affiliations vote on it, you'd have gotten the same outcome. So we're really just going around in circles here.

[grayhatter]

My problem is with NIST, your problem is with DJB. Neither of us really want to defend either, (I assume, maybe you do want to defend one of them?) We just disagree which one is more likely to make the world worse.

I'm not taken in by the crazyness on either side, and while if pressed, it's obvious which side I would pick. I'm not so much picking a side, so much as complaining again, how we're letting a group with an earned reputation for being untrustworthy keep secrets about crypto. I hate the whole thing, but that's how little trust I have left in other people. The crazy guy is the on the side I hate less... but what to do?

edit:

> You're making my point for me. Nobody in the whole world is asking for you to take NIST's word for anything.

Literally everyone standardizing on Kyber is asking me to trust NIST, et al, and pay the additional overhead for setting up a TLS connection. I guess you could frame it as they're not asking, because I'm not being physically forced to interact with them... but then I try really hard not to engage with bad faith bait, when I'm able to resist.

[tptacek]

No, nobody is asking you to trust NIST.

[grayhatter]

Did you really need me to specify rhetorically speaking? You weren't able to work out that on your own?