djb has been consistent in view for decades that cryptography standards need to consider the foolproofness of implementation so that a minor implementation mistake specific to timing of specific instructions on specific CPU architectures, or specific compiler optimisations, etc doesn't break the implementation. See for example the many problems of NIST P-224/P-256/P-384 ECC curves which djb has been instrumental in fixing through widespread deployment of X25519.[3][4][5]
[1] https://cryspen.com/post/ml-kem-implementation/
[2] https://kyberslash.cr.yp.to/faq.html / https://kyberslash.cr.yp.to/libraries.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_point_multiplic...
Here's the thing. The existence of a standard does not mean we need to use it for most of the internet. There will also be hybrid standards, and most of the rest of us can simply ignore the existence of ML-KEM -only. However, NSA's CNSA 2.0 (commercial cryptography you can sell to the US Federal Government) does not envisage using hybrid schemes. So there's some sense in having a standard for that purpose. Better developed through the IETF than forced on browser vendors directly by the US, I think. There was rough consensus to do this. Should we have a single-cipher kex standard for HQC too? I'd argue yes, and no the NSA don't propose to use it (unless they updated CNSA).
The requirement of the NIST competition is that all standardized algorithms are both classical and PQ-resistant. Some have said in this thread that lattice crypto is relatively new, but it actually has quite some history, going back to Atjai in '97. If you want paranoia, there's always code theory based schemes going back to around '75. We don't know what we don't know, which is why there's HQC (code based) waiting on standardisation and an additional on-ramp for signatures, plus the expensive (size and sometimes statefulness) of hash-based options. So there's some argument that single-cipher is fine, and we have a whole set of alternative options.
This particular overreaction appears to be yet another in a long running series of... disagreements with the entire NIST process, including "claims" around the security level of what we then called Kyber, insults to the NIST team's security level estimation in the form of suggesting they can't do basic arithmetic (given we can't factor anything bigger than 15 on a real quantum computer and we simply don't have hardware anywhere near breaking RSA, estimate is exactly what these are) and so on.
While a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, Bernstein completed the development of an encryption equation (an "algorithm") he calls "Snuffle." Bernstein wishes to publish a) the algorithm (b) a mathematical paper describing and explaining the algorithm and (c) the "source code" for a computer program that incorporates the algorithm. Bernstein also wishes to discuss these items at mathematical conferences, college classrooms and other open public meetings. The Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (the ITAR regulatory scheme) required Bernstein to submit his ideas about cryptography to the government for review, to register as an arms dealer, and to apply for and obtain from the government a license to publish his ideas. Failure to do so would result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Bernstein believes this is a violation of his First Amendment rights and has sued the government.
After four years and one regulatory change, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that software source code was speech protected by the First Amendment and that the government's regulations preventing its publication were unconstitutional. - Source https://www.eff.org/cases/bernstein-v-us-dept-justicehttps://web.archive.org/web/20251122075555/https://mailarchi...
Is this the official stance of FlexTrade UK, whom you represent:
The informal also didn’t cloak their identity (implies some malicious intent), they simple did not use their work email. Nothing wrong with that.
22/29 = 76% in some form of "yea"
That feels like "rough consensus"
DJB's argument that this isn't good enough would, by itself, be enough for me to route his objections to /dev/null; it's so tedious and snipey that it sours the quality of his other arguments by mere association. And overall, it gives the impression of someone who is more interested in derailing the entire process than in actually trying to craft a good standard.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32360533
From 2023, "Debunking NIST's calculation of the Kyber-512 security level":
Stuff like this
> Wow, look at that: "due process".... Could it possibly be that the people writing the law were thinking through how standardization processes could be abused?"
is both accusing the other party of bad faith and also heavily using sarcasm, which is a sort of performative bad faith.
Sarcasm can be really effective when used well. But when a post is dripping with sarcasm and accusing others of bad faith it comes off as hiding a weak position behind contempt. I don't know if this is just how DJB writes, or if he's adopting this voice because he thinks it's what the internet wants to see right now.
Personally, I would prefer a style where he says only what he means without irony and expresses his feelings directly. If showing contempt is essential to the piece, then the Linus Torvalds style of explicit theatrical contempt is probably preferable, at least to me.
I understand others may feel differently. The style just gives me crackpot vibes and that may color reception of the blog posts to people who don't know DJT's reputation.
ECC is well understood and has not been broken over many years.
ML-KEM is new, and hasn't had the same scrutiny as ECC. It's possible that the NSA already knows how to break this, and has chosen not to tell us, and NIST plays the useful idiot.
NIST has played the useful idiot before, when it promoted Dual_EC_DRBG, and the US government paid RSA to make it the default CSPRNG in their crypto libraries for everyone else... but eventually word got out that it's almost certainly an NSA NOBUS special, and everyone started disabling it.
Knowing all that, and planning for a future where quantum computers might defeat ECC -- it's not defeated yet, and nobody knows when in the future that might happen... would you choose:
Option A): encrypt key exchange with ECC and the new unproven algorithm
Option B): throw out ECC and just use the new unproven algorithm
NIST tells you option B is for the best. NIST told you to use Dual_EC_DRBG. W3C adopted EME at the behest of Microsoft, Google and Netflix. Microsoft told you OOXML is a valid international standard you should use instead of OpenDocument (and it just so happens that only one piece of software, made by Microsoft, correctly reads and writes OOXML). So it goes on. Standards organisations are very easily corruptable when its members are allowed to have conflicts of interest and politick and rules-lawyer the organisation into adopting their pet standards.
So yeah, NSA potentially sneaking a backdoor into an approved standard is pretty outrageous, and worth objecting to in strongest terms, and when that risk is present it should be subjected to the highest conceiveable standard of scrutiny.
In fact, I found this to be the strongest point in the article - there's any number of alternatives that might (1) prove easier to implement, (2) prove more resilient to future attacks (3) turn out to be the most efficient.
Just because you want to do something in the future doesn't mean it needs to be ML-KEM specifically, and the idea of throwing out ECC is almost completely inexplicable unless you're the NSA and you can't break it and you're trying to propose a new standard that doesn't include it.
How is that not a hair on fire level concern?
However, he’s left a wake of combative controversy his entire career, of the “crackpot” type the parent comment notes, and at some point it’d be worth his asking, AITA? Second, his unconditional support of Jacob Appelbaum has been bonkers. He’s obviously smart and uncompromising but, despite having been in the right on some issues, his scorched earth approach/lack of judgment seems to have turned his paranoia about everyone being out to get him into a self-fulfilling prophecy.