[bestbits] Do we really want to shoot in Dilma's foot?

[Norbert Bollow]

Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india.org> wrote:

> This is true. But that doesn't answer my question about NSA weakening
> IETF or other similar bodies.

It is publicly known that NSA employees are participating in IETF.
That is not hidden in any way.

Certainly these NSA employees have not been pursuing objective contrary
to what is now known to have been the overall objective of the NSA.

A firsthand account of this is here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg12325.html

Getting security right is hard, especially in a committee process.

Even if IETF's processes are (compared to other standardization
organizations) relatively robust against capture, after having just
re-read John Gilmore's account, I'm getting the impression that the
NSA very likely successfully prevented a better IPSEC spec.

Greetings,
Norbert
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