Sorry, you're just fueling counterproductive witch-hunt hysteria. Probably due to seeking safety and wanting for trustable crypto gurus to show you the way. They don't exist. The only way to move forward is to continue to judge ideas and not people, and use what we've learned to design systems more resistant to hidden subterfuge of unknown design.

> The answers came swiftly: Brian Smith works for Mozilla. Yes, we can trust that this proposal has no hidden agenda. We hadn't heard about it because it was originally posted to the Mozilla Crypto list two days ago.

Would the NSA not have planted multiple long-term people at Mozilla? Would these people not cover for each other, and promulgate their insecurities by planting them in the minds of others who then make the on-record proposal?

The reputation of the popular cryptographers we know and love would only have suffered if their subversions were discovered, which is clearly the opposite of the NSA's goal. And if that is where their morals lie, why would they be personally worried about being uncovered? Moving to Virginia/Utah probably isn't that bad.

And BTW why hasn't Bruce Schneier released the raw documents that could shed clues on which systems are flawed? This is bona fide security-critical information with extreme relevance to the technical community, regardless of the NSA's whining. But I just have to assume he has his reasons even if I'd think they're misguided.

I apologize for any personal implications against Brian, Bruce, et al - they're meant to be completely illustrative. But any decent security person would actually tell you that you should not trust them either.