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Comment by adgjlsfhk1

3 hours ago

IMO the idea that NSA only uses NOBUS backdoors is obviously false (see for example DES's 56 bit key size). The NSA is perfectly capable of publicly calling for an insecure algorithm and then having secret documentation to not use it for anything important.

DES is the algorithms that was secretly modified by the NSA to protect it against differential cryptanalysis. Capping a key size is hardly a "backdoor."

Also, that was the time of export ciphers and Suite A vs Suite B, which were very explicit about there being different algorithms for US NatSec vs. everything else. This time there's only CNSA 2.0, which is pure ML-KEM and ML-DSA.

So no, there is no history of the NSA pushing non-NOBUS backdoors into NatSec algorithms.

> see for example DES's 56 bit key size

In fairness, that was from 1975. I don't particularly trust the NSA, but i dont think things they did half a century ago is a great way to extrapolate their current interests.