Comment by mike_d
2 years ago
> NIST may or may not consort with your friendly local neighborhood NSA people
It is worth noting that while breaking codes is a big part of the NSA's job, they also have a massive organization (NSA Cybersecurity, but I prefer the old name Information Assurance) that works to protect US and allied systems and cryptographic applications.
In the balance, weakening American standards does little to help with foreign collection. Their efforts would be much better spent injecting into the GOST process (Russia and friends) or State Cryptography Administration (China and friends).
> In the balance, weakening American standards does little to help with foreign collection.
While that makes logical sense, the previous actions of the NSA has demonstrated they're not a logical actor in regards to this stuff, or that there's more going on.
> In the balance, weakening American standards does little to help with foreign collection.
Though it can be greatly beneficial for domestic collection. Further, so long as the US remains a dominant player in Tech and Tech-influenced fields like finance, odds are a lot of the world is going to be at least de facto using US standards.