Anthropic’s research model Claude answered a 25-year-old mystery in less than half an hour by uncovering the origins of numbers selected by the U.S. National Security Agency for encryption standards.
According to CoinDesk, the model reproduced the initial numbers of five elliptic curves supplied by the NSA in the late 1990s using an old software program and timestamps from 1997 and 1998. The finding offers a new answer to suspicions that the numbers may have been specially selected to create a hidden security vulnerability.
Elliptic curve cryptography is a mathematical method used in internet security systems and cryptocurrency wallets. It can be thought of as a lock whose design everyone can see, but that only the holder of the key can open. The debate was not about people’s private keys, but about how this shared lock design was created.
An old program sheds light on a 25-year-old suspicion
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, incorporated the curves supplied by the NSA into its standards in 2000. The initial numbers used to generate the curves were public, but how they had been chosen was not explained. This led to suspicions that the NSA may have tried many options in search of a weakness that only it could exploit.
Researchers spent years tracing the numbers through records requests and various theories. At one point, they also considered the possibility that the initial values had been derived from a forgotten phrase. An Anthropic employee did not share this old theory when asking the company’s internal research model to investigate the issue.
In less than half an hour, Claude linked the numbers to a random number generator called lrand48 in old C software libraries. When run using timestamps from 1997 and 1998, the program could reproduce the published initial numbers. The initial value for the widely used P-256 curve matched exactly at candidate 1,842.
Anthropic says that the ability for anyone to repeat the process significantly reduces the likelihood of a hidden vulnerability. However, it remains unclear why some usable candidates were skipped in the original generation process and how the other components of the curves were selected. The company also says that users of NIST curves do not need to make any changes.
How do Bitcoin and Ethereum fit into this debate?
Bitcoin and Ethereum use a different curve called secp256k1, rather than the NIST curves at the center of this mystery. Its simpler mathematical structure and small, fixed parameters leave less room for secretly introducing a weakness during its design.
Claude’s finding, then, is about clarifying the origins of another encryption standard, not cracking Bitcoin wallets. The initial numbers in question have been public from the start; they do not serve the same function as wallets’ private keys.
The $36,864 reward set aside for solving the mystery will be donated to the Internet Security Research Group, the nonprofit behind Let’s Encrypt, which provides free security certificates for websites.
Not investment advice.