Re: [TLS] Safe ECC usage

["D. J. Bernstein" <[e-mail]>]

Michael StJohns writes:
> The existence of this document, created in 1997 would tend to suggest
> that at least a few curves were created in X9 and not by NIST

If you look at

   http://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/fedstandards.html

you'll see NIST stating "These curves have been generated and reviewed
by the government." Offhand I can't think of a NIST document admitting
that the curves were created by NSA, but everyone in the community knows
Jerry Solinas as the NSA point man on this. NSA's earlier contribution
of the same curves to X9 is what led to X9 demanding seeds for curves
(and incorrectly labeling seeded curves as "verifiably random").

---D. J. Bernstein
   Research Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago