Anthropic model traces NSA the origin of elliptic-curve seeds
BIBIBI
AT A GLANCE
The report said that Anthropic's internal model traced a possible generation method for five NIST elliptic-curve seeds, reducing the likelihood of a hidden backdoor.
Article
Claude cracks a NSA 25-year elliptic-curve seed puzzle
PANews October 17 reported, citing CoinDesk, that an Anthropic internal research model took less than half an hour to trace NSA to 1990 in the late NIST s: the five elliptic-curve seeds provided to, numbers long suspected of concealing a backdoor, were in fact generated by a random-number generator lrand48 in an old C-language library combined with 1997、1998-year timestamps. The model reproduced the widely used P-256 curve sequence and matched the publicly disclosed seeds exactly at the 1,842 th candidate value. Anthropic said the finding substantially reduces the likelihood of a hidden backdoor; users of NIST curves need take no action, though it still cannot explain why the program skipped some available candidate values. Bitcoin uses the simpler secp256k1 curve and is not involved in this...
Key points
01
PANews said the news came from a CoinDesk report.
02
The report said that an Anthropic internal research model took less than half an hour to trace NSA in the late 1990 s provided to NIST: the origins of five elliptic-curve seeds.
03
The report said that these numbers were generated by a random-number generator lrand48 in an old C-language library combined with 1997、1998-year timestamps.
04
The model reproduced the widely used P-256 curve sequence and exactly matched the publicly disclosed seeds at the 1,842 th candidate value.
05
Anthropic said the finding substantially reduces the likelihood of a hidden backdoor, and users of NIST curves need take no action.
06
The report stated that it remains unexplained why the program skipped some available candidate values.
07
The report noted that Bitcoin uses the simpler secp256k1 curve; however, the original text was truncated after “is not involved in this.”
AI-assisted interpretation
The following is analysis, separate from reported facts. Verify important claims independently.
Elliptic-curve seeds can be used to generate curve parameters. The model described in the report found a generation process that can match publicly disclosed seeds, so Anthropic believes the likelihood that these seeds conceal a backdoor has declined. However, there is still no answer as to why some candidate values were skipped.
Why it matters to readers
This concerns assessments of the origin and trustworthiness of NIST elliptic-curve parameters. The report provided generation clues that can match publicly disclosed seeds, but the available evidence is only a truncated media account and cannot confirm the full research process or final security conclusion.
Ordinary users need not take action solely because of this report; the report also said that users of NIST curves need take no action. The sentence concerning Bitcoin was truncated, so its conclusion cannot be fully determined from the available text.
Risks and unknowns
The evidence does not provide Anthropic's complete research materials, code, or independent replication results.
The reason the program skipped some available candidate values remains unexplained.
The original text was truncated at the end; the complete statement concerning Bitcoin and secp256k1 cannot be confirmed.
“Substantially reducing the likelihood of hidden backdoors” is Anthropic's assessment; it does not mean that the absence of backdoors has been proven.
Related Developments
Loading event timeline…
Related concepts
Elliptic curves
This term is not in the glossary yet. Browse related concepts in the glossary.
