When you know you can't kill the message, kill the messenger.
replyThis is the tactic used when journalist Gary Webb started reporting on the USA involvement with selling crack to Americans so they could fund Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.
They did this so well that other news organizations turned on the journalist.
I could easily imagine the USA not wanting to patch holes so they have access to the systems and these experts know this.
The US agency that we entrust with evaluating and recommending our encryption standards is the same one (albeit a different branch) that focuses on breaking encryption. There is an obvious conflict of interest with this arrangement.
replyMany examples of deliberate weakening are documented, especially with the "export approved" stuff that we sell to our allies.
This problem goes beyond just encryption, and also involves deliberate data leaking (with plausible deniability).
So yes, you don't need to imagine it at all -- the NSA works to create and maintain access to "everything everywhere."
Does this mean the NSA could open things I've encrypted using libsodium crypto_box?
replyThe used algorithms were designed by DJB, not US agencies.
replyWhat does this mean? NIST and NSA are not even in the same federal department.
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