We explore how the NIST curve parameter seeds were generated, as best we can, with returning champion Steve Weis!

“At the point where we find an intelligible English string that generates the
NIST P-curve seeds, nobody serious is going to take the seed provenance concerns seriously anymore.”

Transcript: https://securitycryptographywhatever.com/2023/10/12/the-nist-curves

Links:

- Steve’s post: https://saweis.net/posts/nist-curve-seed-origins.html
- ANSI X9.62 ECDSA: https://safecurves.cr.yp.to/grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/private/x9-62-09-20-98.pdf / FIPS 186-2 https://csrc.nist.gov/files/pubs/fips/186-2/final/docs/fips186-2.pdf
- “A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA”: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1018.pdf
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/nsa-official-support-of-backdoored-dual_ec_drbg-was-regrettable/
- https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/origin-of-fips-186-4-elliptic-curves-over-prime-field-seed-parameters-national-institute-of-standards-and-technology-78756/
- https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/origin-of-fips-186-4-elliptic-curves-over-prime-field-seed-parameters-national-security-agency-78755/
- Filippo’s bounty: https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/seeds-bounty/
- Recommendations for Discrete Logarithm-based Cryptography: Elliptic Curve Domain Parameters - NIST 800-186 with Curve25519 and friends
- RFC 8422: Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Versions 1.2 and Earlier
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4492#section-6
- https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2017/12/19/the-strange-story-of-extended-random/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_(decryption_program)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSAFE
- https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/08/04/is-extended-random-malicious/

"Security Cryptography Whatever" is hosted by Deirdre Connolly (@durumcrustulum), Thomas Ptacek (@tqbf), and David Adrian (@dadrian)