“At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows the public to formally request - and expect to receive in return - documents from the federal government.” LOL.But it's just a lie of the federal government's “freedom of information”. I requested a document that was in the archives, but tthey denied it
This request will most likely be denied ------- Original Message ------- zeynepaydogan <[email protected]> 17 Mart 2022 Perşembe saat 02:17 tarihinde şunu yazdı: > https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/nsa-nist-and-post-quantum-cryptography-126349/ > > 1.Summary > > This is a FOIA request for the records described below. > > 2. Preamble > > NSA's policy decision to sabotage public cryptographic standards is described > in an internal NSA history book released in 2013: > > https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/ > https://archive.org/details/cold_war_iii-nsa/cold_war_iii-ISCAP/page/n239/mode/2up > > The critical quote from NSA's history book is as follows: "Narrowing the > encryption problem to a single, influential algorithm might drive out > competitors, and that would reduce the field that NSA had to be concerned > about. Could a public encryption standard be made secure enough to protect > against everything but a massive brute force attack, but weak enough to still > permit an attack of some nature using very sophisticated (and expensive) > techniques?" > > The first cryptographic mechanism standardized by NBS/NIST was DES in the > 1970s. DES had a key size that was too small for security. The same history > book reports that NSA had managed to "convince" the DES designers to reduce > the key size. > > In the 1990s, NIST proposed DSA, another cryptographic mechanism with a key > size that was too small for security. A lawsuit by CPSR revealed that DSA had > been secretly designed by NSA: > > https://web.archive.org/web/20200229145033/https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/14/59 > > In 2005, 2006, and 2007, ISO, NIST and ANSI respectively issued standards for > Dual EC, a cryptographic mechanism with an NSA back door: > > https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/us/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption.html > > The same 2013 report describes NSA's budget to "covertly influence and/or > overtly leverage" cryptography to make it "exploitable", in NSA's words. The > budget had grown to a quarter of a billion dollars per year. Presumably NSA's > budget for cryptographic sabotage is even larger today. > > NIST's Dual EC post-mortem concluded that "It is of paramount importance that > NIST's process for developing cryptographic standards is open and transparent > and has the trust and support of the cryptographic community": > > https://web.archive.org/web/20220219211917/https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/05/09/VCAT-Report-on-NIST-Cryptographic-Standards-and-Guidelines-Process.pdf > > The same post-mortem shows NIST's invited reviewers recommending clear > transparency rules, such as "full documentation of all decisions, and clear > processes for the disposition of each and every comment received", along with > being open about "what authorities were consulted". > > In 2016, NIST's call for proposals for its Post-Quantum Cryptography > Standardization Project stated that "NIST will perform a thorough analysis of > the submitted algorithms in a manner that is open and transparent to the > public": > > https://web.archive.org/web/20220119113311/https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography/documents/call-for-proposals-final-dec-2016.pdf > > 81 FR 92787 says that this call for proposals establishes the criteria "that > will be used to appraise the candidate algorithms": > > https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/20/2016-30615/announcing-request-for-nominations-for-public-key-post-quantum-cryptographic-algorithms > > Regarding the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project, NIST stated > in October 2021 that "We operate transparently. We've shown all our work": > > https://web.archive.org/web/20211115191840/https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/post-quantum-encryption-qa-nists-matt-scholl > > However, my current understanding is that, for five years, NIST was > intentionally concealing NSA's involvement in this project. On 22 July 2020, > NSA and NIST issued coordinated announcements that made reasonably clear NSA > was involved but that did not reveal the details. On 2 August 2020, I asked > "What exactly has NSA told NIST regarding NISTPQC, regarding security levels > or otherwise?" NIST did not answer. NIST later tried to suggest that NSA has > had only a minor influence, but NIST has provided no records showing what > NSA's input actually was. > > More broadly, most of the information that I've found on NIST's web site for > this project is simply copies of submissions. NIST has posted some extra > information, but the total volume of information in NIST's reports, web > pages, and mailing-list messages obviously falls far short of "all our work". > Anyone trying to obtain more than a superficial understanding of what has > happened in this project rapidly discovers that critical information is > missing. See Section 5 of the following paper for various examples of > mysteries regarding the NIST process: > > https://cr.yp.to/papers/categories-20200918.pdf > > I've filed six FOIA requests with NIST since mid-2020. NIST has released a > few dribbles of information, but in general NIST's responses have been very > slow and obviously not complete. For example, my FOIA request #20210610-NIST > eight months ago, which asked for "copies of all NIST records of > communication between NSA and NIST regarding the NIST Post-Quantum > Cryptography Standardization Project", has, so far, produced zero records, > even though NIST had already admitted in the following document that it made > changes to a report based on "feedback received (from the NSA)": > > https://web.archive.org/web/20210508052729/https://csrc.nist.gov/CSRC/media/Presentations/pqc-update-round-2-and-beyond/images-media/pqcrypto-sept2020-moody.pdf > > Analyzing NSA's impact on this project will require not just seeing NSA's > communication with NIST, but also tracing how NIST's decisions were made and > analyzing the influence of the information that NIST received from NSA. If > each step of this analysis requires dealing with another round of > stonewalling from NIST then the analysis will obviously not be done in time > to help the public make safe decisions regarding post-quantum cryptography. > > NSA's documented history of sabotage, along with its evident sway over NIST, > makes NSA's influence on NIST a high priority to review, but it also seems > likely that other entities have also been trying to sabotage NIST's process. > As far as I can tell, NIST has no procedures in place to prevent attackers > from influencing the project through pseudonyms, proxies, etc. Anything short > of a full review of project records could easily miss evidence of attacks. > > Even without sabotage, getting cryptography right is challenging. Public > review has identified security flaws in dozens of submissions and has > identified many errors in the limited additional information released by > NIST. Having NIST keep most of its analysis secret is a recipe for disaster. > Given that NIST promised to be "open and transparent", and recently claimed > to have "shown all our work", it's hard to understand why the full project > records aren't already available to the public. > > 3. Request for records > > Please send me, in electronic form, a copy of NIST's records regarding the > NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project. Specifically, I am > requesting the following records: > > (1) records of the project phase leading up to the call for submissions, > meaning the period before the issuance of 81 FR 92787 (20 December 2016); > > (2) records of the submission phase, meaning the period starting from the > issuance of 81 FR 92787 and continuing through the submission deadline (30 > November 2017); > > (3) records of the first round, meaning the period starting from the > submission deadline and continuing through the issuance of NIST IR 8240 (31 > January 2019); > > (4) records of the second round, meaning the period starting from the > issuance of NIST IR 8240 and continuing through the issuance of NIST IR 8309 > (22 July 2020); and > > (5) more recent records, up to the day that this request is processed. > > This request includes the full records of the project, and also includes any > further records referencing the project. > > This request includes, but is not limited to, documents from NIST, documents > from NSA, documents from other U.S. government agencies, and documents from > foreign government agencies. This request also includes all records of > NIST/NSA meetings mentioning the word "quantum", whether or not NIST views > those meetings as part of this project. This request also includes all > records of NSA's writeup of post-quantum cryptography mentioned at the 27 > August 2013 NIST/NSA meeting. > > If there are any responsive records that are publicly available on NIST's web > site as of the date that this request is processed, I request that NIST > provide the specific URL for each record. Please clearly indicate any such > parts of your response as "Records already available". > > For all other responsive records, I request that NIST deliver the records in > their original electronic format, such as PDF format, or as PDF scans for > documents that were originally created on paper. > > For email messages sent publicly to NIST's pqc-forum mailing list, I am > willing to narrow the scope of this request to records showing the metadata > of each message, at least the date and time. (It should be easy for NIST to > produce a list of metadata. Please note that pqc-forum email dated 21 Nov > 2021 16:20:14 +0100 and 21 Nov 2021 21:44:58 +0100 pointed out a pqc-forum > message missing from Google's archive; I presume there are more messages > missing.) > > Regarding the search of the records, it has come to my attention that some > NIST employees have been using their > private[gmail.com](http://gmail.com/)addresses such > [email protected]@gmail.comfor some of their work on this > project, as the following documents illustrate: > > https://groups.google.com/a/list.nist.gov/g/pqc-forum/c/fvnhyQ25jUg/m/NCduE66ZBAAJ > https://web.archive.org/web/20220223131246/https://www.cs.umd.edu/~gasarch/COURSES/456/F21/L.pdf > > I request not just project records stored on government servers, but also > project records that NIST employees have stored on private servers such > as[gmail.com](http://gmail.com/). > > 4. Request for fee categorization > > Please confirm that you're categorizing this FOIA request, like my previous > FOIA requests, under the "educational" requester category. You can find my > University of Illinois at Chicago profile here: > > https://cs.uic.edu/profiles/daniel-j-bernstein/ > > Here is an example of a paper that I coauthored analyzing previous NSA > sabotage of cryptographic standards: > > https://projectbullrun.org/dual-ec/documents/dual-ec-20150731.pdf > > This paper was published as pages 256 through 281 in "The new codebreakers", > edited by Peter Y. A. Ryan, David Naccache, and Jean-Jacques Quisquater, > Lecture Notes in Computer Science 9100, Springer, 2015, ISBN > 978-3-662-49300-7. The paper already has more than 100 citations, according > to Google Scholar. > > 5. Request for fee waiver > > I request a waiver of all fees. I am filing this request via MuckRock to > ensure that the results will be made easily available to journalists and to > the general public. This disclosure will contribute significantly to public > understanding of NIST activities, and I have no commercial interest that > would be furthered by the requested disclosure. > > Regarding the six fee-waiver factors: > > (1) Whether the subject of the requested records concerns "the operations or > activities of the government": 81 FR 92787 is a Federal Register notice > calling for submissions to a government project and saying how the > submissions would be evaluated. This is a request for the records of what has > happened in that project. > > (2) Whether the disclosure is "likely to contribute" to an understanding of > government operations or activities: Given records from the 1970s through the > 2010s demonstrating NSA motivations, budgets, and activities to sabotage > cryptographic standards (see links above), presumably NSA has also been > trying to sabotage the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization > Project. Documents released in the past have played a major role in public > analyses of NSA sabotage and other problems with NIST's cryptographic > standards; see, e.g., the role of these releases > inhttps://cr.yp.to/talks.html#2013.12.28. > > (3) Whether disclosure of the requested information will contribute to > "public understanding" as opposed to just "individual understanding": I have > already posted a variety of in-depth analyses of the limited information that > NIST has released so far regarding the Post-Quantum Cryptography > Standardization Project (see, > e.g.,https://cr.yp.to/papers/categories-20200918.pdf), and will similarly > post analyses of the further information released under this FOIA request. > Cryptography is a technical subject, but there are more than 1000 members of > the International Association of Cryptologic Research. There are also > established mechanisms of bringing cryptographic news to broader audiences > and to the general public, reflecting the public interest in the safety of > Internet communication. I have been fighting NSA's cryptographic sabotage for > 30 years (see, e.g., _Bernstein v. United States_, 176 F.3d 1132); together > with colleagues, I have found many problems with NIST's previous > NSA-influenced work on cryptography (see, > e.g.,https://cr.yp.to/newelliptic/nistecc-20160106.pdf), and have given talks > to audiences of thousands based on NSA/NIST documents (see, > e.g.,https://cr.yp.to/talks.html#2013.12.28). > > (4) Whether the disclosure is likely to contribute "significantly" to public > understanding of government operations or activities: The limited information > that NIST has released regarding the Post-Quantum Cryptography > Standardization Project provides only superficial explanations of what > happened in the project. It is impossible today for the public to track what > inputs were provided to NIST and to analyze how the inputs influenced NIST's > decisions, whereas transparency will give the public an answer to these > critical questions. Transparency was also highlighted in NIST's Dual EC > post-mortem (see link above), recognizing the effectiveness and importance of > public disclosures of this type of information regarding cryptographic > standards. > > (5) Whether the requester has a commercial interest that would be furthered > by the requested disclosure: No. I'm a professor. I make my work available > for free with no royalties. My interest is in ensuring the safety of > cryptographic mechanisms used by the general public. > > (6) Whether any such commercial interest outweighs the public interest in > disclosure: Not applicable. See #5. > > Please let me know if you need any further information. > > ---Daniel J. Bernstein
