> You're argument is that I shouldn't think of NIST as a patsy for the NSA,

Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

The thing you said is a whole different argument. "I like waffles" "So you hate pancakes" is happening.

> Incentives are basically all I consider when trying to establish true motive. But you're not required to consider motive when there's a history or pattern.

Yes you are. You need to consider both factors. Why render yourself willfully ignorant? That's not how you arrive at truth.

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philodeon 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

Your mind is going to be blown when you learn about proxy organizations and cut-outs.

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some_furry 17 hours ago | parent [-]

NIST does a lot of things that have nothing to do with computer security!

Would you indict NIST MEP https://www.nist.gov/mep/about-nist-mep as being an NSA project without evidence?

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philodeon 17 hours ago | parent [-]

The Godfather Part 2 demonstrated overwhelmingly that a good part of Vito Corleone’s ill-gotten gains went to strengthening his community. The Italians in his neighborhood adored him.

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some_furry 16 hours ago | parent [-]

What does a work of fiction have to do with whether two distinct government entities are the same thing or not?

That's beyond moving goalposts. Just take the L, dude.

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philodeon 16 hours ago | parent [-]

I was making the point that if you have subverted the NIST to do your bidding in what appears to be a neutral way, obviously you’re going to have some feel-good projects in your portfolio. Otherwise, the folks that the Soviets called “useful idiots” wouldn’t have anything to point to to exonerate them.

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some_furry 16 hours ago | parent [-]

You're all over the place except where the discussion was actually taking place.

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philodeon 16 hours ago | parent [-]

Ok, let me be clear: the NIST is a proxy organization for the NSA. The declassified internal history of the NSA makes it clear that they were subverting the NIST back when they were still called the National Bureau of Standards.

Just because NIST engages in some wholesome activities doesn’t mean that their core purpose isn’t to do the bidding of the NSA.

	▲	grayhatter 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Just because NIST engages in some wholesome activities doesn’t mean that their core purpose isn’t to do the bidding of the NSA. Their core purpose is to recommend standards that everyone can use, and anyone who wants to work with the US government is expected to follow. They have to pick standards for everything, but can't have experts in everything on staff, so are required to defer to other experts willing to help. The NSA took advantage of them. I find the idea that NIST wants to be a lackey to the NSA, stupid. It's ignorance and incompetence that lead NIST to getting duped by the NSA. The problem is, not getting dupe is literally, their only job. It's like hiring a firefighter to protect you and then they set your house on fire; it doesn't matter so much why you don't have a house anymore... you just sure a hell are never letting him near anything important every again. You're allowed to treat gross incompetence as equivalent to intentional malice, without needing to make something up about how it was intentional.

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grayhatter 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Incorrect. My argument is that they aren't the same entity.

Did I claim they were the same?

> The thing you said is a whole different argument. "I like waffles" "So you hate pancakes" is happening.

uh.... you started it? What are we even doing? I'm not above this kinda comment, but I kinda assumed you were? I'd be interested if you have a take I haven't considered; but not if we're just going to try to make straw man of the other.

> Yes you are. [required to consider motive]. Why render yourself willfully ignorant? That's not how you arrive at truth.

I'm not looking for a pure truth. I'm just looking for a heuristic that's just functional enough to keep me, and my data safe. I don't even want to make a perfect is the enemy of good argument. I'm just pointing out, where my line is. I lack the maths knowledge, practical experience, fucks left to give, and spoons remaining for the things I want to spend my time one. Evaluating every bit of information I could possibly gather, and witholding and judgement is a cute idea, but I've got better things to do. NIST has in tandem with the NSA, lied, and shipped a broken crypto system. Let's pretend I don't consider that to be permanently disqualifying, resign, stand up a completely new group from scratch, black tag/non-salvageable. They've burned the default good will everyone starts with, and then peed on it for good measure. Now they're hiding information AGAIN?!

Nah, I could waste my time trying to find the objective truth. Or I could give NIST the finger, and say, make the person with the remaining good will and trust and fucks left to spend on NIST happy. Only then come back to me. Until then, I refuse, and for the same reason I refuse to review LLM PRs; I'm trying to do things, and [they] are trying to DoS my brain.

Ideally, you'd stop helping [the them], or answer the remaining objections line by line, and publicly? Then I'd have someone else with enough good will that I can trust. Because NIST is doing the opposite if they want my confidence.