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Strictly Come Dancing fans fumed 'what is the point' as Hollywood star Cynthia Erivo landed a mentor role on the show on Saturday night.

Cryptologist/CS professor Daniel J. Bernstein is alleging that America's National Security Agency is attempting to influence NIST post-quantum cryptography standards. Bernstein first emphasizes that it's normal for post-quantum cryptography (or "PQ") to be part of "hybrid" security that also includes traditional pre-quantum cryptography. (Bernstein says this is important because since 2016, "We've seen many breaks of post-quantum proposals...") "The problem in a nutshell. Surveillance agency NSA and its [UK counterpart] GCHQ are trying to have standards-development organizations endorse weakening [pre-quantum] ECC+PQ down to just PQ." Part of this is that NSA and GCHQ have been endlessly repeating arguments that this weakening is a good thing... I'm instead looking at how easy it is for NSA to simply spend money to corrupt the standardization process.... The massive U.S. military budget now publicly requires cryptographic "components" to have NSA approval... In June 2024, NSA's William Layton wrote that "we do not anticipate supporting hybrid in national security systems"... [Later a Cisco employee wrote of selling non-hybrid cryptography to a significant customer, "that's what they're willing to buy. Hence, Cisco will implement it".] What do you do with your control over the U.S. military budget? That's another opportunity to "shape the worldwide commercial cryptography marketplace". You can tell people that you won't authorize purchasing double encryption. You can even follow through on having the military publicly purchase single encryption. Meanwhile you quietly spend a negligible amount of money on an independent encryption layer to protect the data that you care about, so you're actually using double encryption. This seems to be a speculative scenario. But Bernstein is also concerned about how the Internet Engineering Task Force handled two drafts specifying post-quantum encryption mechanisms for TLS ("the security layer inside HTTPS and inside various other protocols"). For a draft suggesting "non-hybrid" encryption, there were 20 statements of support (plus 2 more only conditionally supporting it), but 7 more statements unequivocally opposing adoption, including one from Bernstein. The IETF has at times said they aim for "rough consensus" — or for "broad consensus" — but Bernstein insists 7 opposers in a field of 29 (24.13%) can't be said to match the legal definition of consensus (which is "general agreement"). "I've filed a formal complaint regarding the claim of consensus to adopt." He's also written a second blog post analyzing the IETF's decision-making process in detail. "It's already bad that the IETF TLS working group adopted non-hybrid post-quantum encryption without official answers to the objections that were raised. It's much worse if the objections can't be raised in the first place." Thanks to alanw (Slashdot reader #1,822) for spotting the blog posts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Godfather star was seen smiling brightly and looking healthy as she posed with her dog Reggie in an April 11 Instagram post promoting a Hudson Grace dog statue and dog biscuits.

Women and girls over the age of 12 have been banned by a mosque from taking part in Muslim Charity Run, in Victoria Park, Tower Hamlets, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

From family-friendly pumpkin patches to spine-chilling scare experiences, this list offers something for every level of Halloween enthusiasm.

From family-friendly pumpkin patches to spine-chilling scare experiences, this list offers something for every level of Halloween enthusiasm.

It's perfect for visiting for an autumnal day out

My piles are so bad that they're bleeding constantly, but my GP says it's not serious enough for NHS treatment. What can I do?

Louis Tomlinson spoke about his relationship in rare comment

Diane Keaton's The First Wives Club co-stars have paid tribute to her after her death at the age of 79.

Richard E. Grant has enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in his sixties due to several high-profile roles, his love of celebrity selfies and his surprise catwalk appearances.

Courageous Emma Fogarty, 41, is the longest living Irish person with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), a rare and painful condition that leaves the skin as delicate as tissue paper.

The actor and director will shine a light on his own complicated upbringing in forthcoming documentary, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.

Would you quit being a professional football to sell vacuum cleaner nozzles with an inventor you had just met? That's exactly what Tomas Brolin did in 1998.

Raoul Moat, 37, (not pictured) killed one person and wounded two others in 2010. Now, his father Peter Blake (pictured) has spoken about his biggest regret in a new documentary.

The market promises to include handcrafted gifts, mulled wine, and music performances

Judges deemed in April this year that the term 'sex' in the Equality Act should stand for biological sex rather than self-identified gender.

Victoria Beckham's daughter Harper is reportedly stepping into the world of beauty entrepreneurship.

The car maker has just restarted production after receiving a £1.5bn government loan guarantee, having had its manufacturing plants and delivery systems shut since September 1.

Kemi Badenoch electrified the gathering in Manchester last week as she promised to use revenue from slashing spending and benefits to do away with stamp duty.