[Cryptography] RSA is dead.

[Dan McDonald]

Congratulations Phil, you touched a nerve...  :)

On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 08:21:39AM -0500, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

<SNIP!>

> The problem is that after someone has worked for the NSA there will be
> under the suspicion that they might be following orders from the agency to
> put backdoors into product after they leave.

Hell, even guilt-by-close-enough-association can bite you in the ass.  I'm
sure many networking security types here remember the IPsec Key Management
fiascos of the mid-90s.  Let me concentrate on one facet: SKIP vs. IKE.

I moved to Sun after two years at NRL (not NSA), where our team did Good
Open-Source Work (TM) on IPv6 and IPsec (before the term open-source was
fully and properly generalized, natch).  Once I arrived at Sun, I wanted to
continue that work in IPsec (including IKE), but I was blocked by political
forces from the invented-at-Sun-Labs SKIP group.  "Oh don't trust that stuff,
it's a backdoor for Key Escrow!"  I've never seen such FUD thrown around in
my life, and all of it was nothing more than to protect the millions that got
thrown into that group.

Moral of the story -> there's a lot of collateral damage (including giving
ammunition to people with orthogonal agendas) when such bombshells strike,
and that damage often includes the innocent. I shudder to think how many
babies might be thrown out with the NSA-polluted bathwater.

(More details available in-person, preferably with Islay or a decent
not-so-hoppy craft beer.)

Dan