The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG

[wraggster]

This story was written back in 2007 by Bruce Schneier (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_strange_sto.html), several years before fail0verflow (http://fail0verflow.com/) found a weakness in the random number generation to retrieve the crucial private PS3 keys in OFW 3.55 (and below). Quote: 'Break the random-number generator, and most of the time you break the entire security system. Which is why you should worry about a new random-number standard that includes an algorithm that is slow, badly designed and just might contain a backdoor for the National Security Agency.' ... 'Even if no one knows the secret numbers, the fact that the backdoor is present makes Dual_EC_DRBG very fragile. If someone were to solve just one instance of the algorithm's elliptic-curve problem, he would effectively have the keys to the kingdom.' Can anyone confirm if this indeed is the reason the PS3 implementation of ECDSA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_DSA) was flawed?"

http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3191