NIST Elliptic Curves Seeds Bounty
&gt; the NSA would have had to be aware of a class of weak curves so large that it’s not plausible that no one in academia or industry discovered them in 25 years.<p>GCHQ in the U.K. hires more mathematicians than any other research institute or University in the country. Not sure about the US equivalents but I imagine it’s similar.<p>Diffie-Helman key exchange was known about by GCHQ and the NSA prior to it being rediscovered by Diffie and Helman. I think it’s hard to assume anything about the underlying capabilities of intelligence institutions. Not saying they do know this but it’s also not impossible, this stuff is their bread and butter.