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NSA and IETF: Fairness
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Overview
Secret NSA documents reveal that the agency promoted the Data Encryption Standard (DES) in the 1970s despite knowing its vulnerabilities to eliminate competition. The NSA also exploited export-law exceptions in the 1990s to favor RC4 and RSA-512, compromised random number generator standards, and maintained a substantial budget to influence security standards through the 2010s.
Summary from blog.cr.yp.to.
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blog.cr.yp.to
NSA and IETF: Fairness
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Hacker News · blog.cr.yp.to
Historical count: 5 · 5 saved in sample · Historical sample
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Based on 5 sampled comments from this thread. Analyzed 2026-07-07.
- Praise: The involvement of esteemed European cryptographers in MLKEM's design is a strong point, indicating a solid foundation for this cryptographic approach.
- Praise: The potential for pure MLKEM in TLS could simplify implementations, moving away from hybrid configurations that many see as unnecessarily complex.
- Concern: Concerns about the NSA's influence in cryptography persist, with skeptics arguing that they may have ulterior motives behind promoting MLKEM.
- Concern: Debates over the effectiveness of lattice cryptography compared to ECC are rife, with some commenters doubting its maturity and real-world applicability.