Anthropic clears NIST elliptic curves of NSA backdoor suspicions
Cloud of suspicion lifted from NIST curves
For decades, cryptographers suspected the NSA planted a backdoor in the NIST elliptic curves published in 2000, especially after the Snowden leaks revealed the agency's Dual_EC_DRBG backdoor. NSA's Jerry Solinas said the seeds came from hashing a humorous message but couldn't recall it. Anthropic researchers claimed Filippo Valsorda's 2023 bounty by reverse-engineering the seeds, proving Solinas acted in good faith. Valsorda now recommends NIST curves over Curve25519.
This nicely completes the "rehabilitation arc" of NIST elliptic curve cryptography, which I would now personally recommend over Curve25519/Ed25519/X25519. Just in time for them to be retired in favor of post-quantum signatures.