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Claude traces the origins of ECDSA curve seeds to timestamps

anthropic.com 10 min read Editor score 7/10

Anthropic says Claude resolved the long-standing question of how NSA-provided ECDSA curve seeds were chosen, summarizing the explanation as “just timestamps.” The result is a notable cryptographic investigation, though the excerpt gives no method details or security changes.

What: - Claude traced the origins of five NIST ECDSA curve seeds to the C library’s lrand48 generator, seeded with a Unix timestamp.
How: - The generator produced 20-byte candidate seeds in sequence until it produced each standardized seed.
Why it matters: - The finding resolves a long-running provenance question and increases confidence in the curves; the excerpt says no action is needed.

A Unix timestamp seeds lrand48, which produces candidate seeds for the curves. Sketched from the article's own text.

Read on anthropic.com → Hacker News · 300 comments

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