NIST pledges transparency in NSA dealings over crypto standards

A U.S. agency that develops widely used standards for encryption has pledged to be more transparent about its dealings with the National Security Agency, amid concerns the NSA undermined those standards to boost its surveillance efforts.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology outlined new proposed operating procedures in an updated draft published Friday. Its seeking public comments on the proposal through March 27.

The document follows a report last July from independent security experts who concluded NIST had put too much faith in the NSA in developing cryptographic standards.

The new draft expands on NISTs interactions with the National Security Agency (NSA), explaining how the agencies work together and what steps are now in place to ensure NSAs contributions to the standards development process are transparent, NIST said.

The new processes will ensure that NIST attributes to the NSA all algorithms, standards or guidelines contributed by the agencys staff, and acknowledges all comments received from the NSA.

NIST has been in the spotlight since 2013, when reports based on leaked documents from Edward Snowden claimed the NSA used its influence over NIST to insert a backdoor in at least one cryptographic standard and possibly to weaken others.

Last February, NIST appointed an independent panel of technologists review its practices, including Ed Felten, a computer scientist at Princeton University, Ron Rivest, an MIT professor, and Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, who works at Google.

They concluded that NIST needed to hire more cryptographic experts and reduce its reliance on the NSA for decisions about standards.

Fridays proposal reflects the feedback in that report and from public comments on the first draft, which was published last February and said much less about NISTs work with the NSA.

NIST is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Formed in 1901, its charged with making U.S. businesses more competitive by creating standard measures for weights and time, as well as standards for encryption, x-ray radiation and other areas.

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NIST pledges transparency in NSA dealings over crypto standards