[Cryptography] mathematical constants

[Paul Wouters]

On Mon, 8 Jun 2026, Peter Gutmann via cryptography wrote:

> How many attacks have there been due to published booby-trapped values in
> crypto algorithms?  (EC-DRBG doens't count because the private-key values were
> never made public, I mean published definitely non-NUMS values).

There was also the RFC 5114 MODP values, but I guess it doesn't count
either because we don't have trapdoor values, even if we are fairly sure
they exist :P

> On the way back from a recent security meeting a friend of mine made the
> comment that worrying about side-channel attacks (which had come up there) was
> like frantically phoning around plumbers to fix a loose tap in a house that's
> on fire.

Which is why I disable the spectr/meltdown workarounds on my laptop. If
something on my laptop can do side channel attacks, I've already lost.

Paul