Is the NSA really competent?
Here are the biggest breakthroughs in cryptography during the period when the NSA has been the purported leader in the field, and has enjoyed by far the largest budget: public key: Diffie, Hellman, Merkle, R.,S., A., etc. key escrow: Micali (and the current NSA/NIST scheme has all the earmarks of being thrown on top of Skipjack at the last moment, after Micali had published, and perhaps even after Denning had discussed it). DES: IBM Skipjack: probably just a modified DES IDEA: Swiss Also zero-knowledge proofs, blind signatures, oblivious transfer, BBS, and other recent advances were all discovered outside the NSA. For all their vaunted competence, for all the mathematicians they have been alleged to employ, despite having a cryptography budget orders of magnitude larger than any other Western crypto group, it looks like the NSA contribued to _none_ of the major advances in cryptography that occured during its zenith.
On Sun, 26 Jun 1994 catalyst-remailer@netcom.com wrote:
Skipjack: probably just a modified DES
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crypto group, it looks like the NSA contribued to _none_ of ^^^^^^ the major advances in cryptography that occured during its zenith.
If skipjack is really a 'major advance' (I won't state an opinion at this point) then it seems that they did indeed contribute to a major advance. At least one. Also if I remember my history right they had a lot to do with the original redesigning of the s-boxes in des. Happy Hunting, -Chris. ______________________________________________________________________________ Christian Douglas Odhner | "The NSA can have my secret key when they pry cdodhner@indirect.com | it from my cold, dead, hands... But they shall pgp 2.3 public key by finger | NEVER have the password it's encrypted with!" cypherpunks WOw dCD Traskcom Team Stupid Key fingerprint = 58 62 A2 84 FD 4F 56 38 82 69 6F 08 E4 F1 79 11 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
crypto group, it looks like the NSA contribued to _none_ of the major advances in cryptography that occured during its zenith. Exactly. It's not the NSA's job to contribute to major advances in publicly-known cryptography. In fact, you could probably even say that it's their job to inhibit such advances... -russ <nelson@crynwr.com> Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key 11 Grant St. | +1 315 268 1925 (9201 FAX) | Quakers do it in the light Potsdam, NY 13676 | LPF member - ask me about the harm software patents do.
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catalyst-remailer＠netcom.com -
Christian D. Odhner -
nelson＠crynwr.com