A concern, I've read some "conspiracy theories" putting the NSA behind CryptoNote. I haven't gotten to deep into that research, so I'd love to hear from people that have.
They said NSA was behind Bitcoin too, and they actually are in one way at least (SHA256), Monero doesnt use SHA256 and its elliptic curve is quite respected outside cryptocurrencies as well (used in TOR), BTC curve is not used anywhere else.