Quote from: tkbx on October 09, 2013, 03:55:31 AM

From the Wikipedia page for elliptic curve crypto:

"In 2013, the New York Times revealed that Dual Elliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generation (or Dual_EC_DRBG) had been included as a NIST national standard due to the influence of NSA, which had included a deliberate weakness in the algorithm."

What kind of "weakness"? Bitcoin uses elliptic curve, correct? What could this mean for Bitcoin?

[snip] The unbelievable thing is that rather than using secp256r1 like nearly all other applications, Bitcoin uses secp256k1 which uses Koblitz curves instead of pseudorandom curves and is still believed to be secure. Now the decision to use secp256k1 instead of secp256r1 was made by Satoshi. Its a mystery why he chose these parameters instead of the parameters used by everyone else (the core devs even considered changing it!). Dan Brown, Chairman of the Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group, had this to say about it:

I did not know that BitCoin is using secp256k1. Indeed, I am surprised to see anybody use secp256k1 instead of secp256r1.

Just wow! This was either random luck or pure genius on the part of Satoshi. Either way, Bitcoin dodged a huge bullet and now almost seems destined to go on to great things. [/snip]

http://chrispacia.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/nsa-backdoors-and-bitcoin/