NIST had no choice

Pure bull puckey. First, they could have let DSA die. The commercial sector, particularly banks, would have come up with alternatives we could trust. Second, they could do what competent engineers have done for many decades: designed around inconvenient patents. Third, if they knew they weren't up to it, they could have asked for public help in that design. Fourth, they could have challenged PKP's patents on their merits. Fifth, they could have worked to get those patents declared void in the public interest. I personally don't support this one until PKP is shown to be primarily government controlled. They did none of these things. Why? Doug