Didn't it read dismissive about that to you?

sdevlin · on Oct 22, 2015

The paper or the post?

I think the paper is maybe slightly dismissive, closer to neutral: "it is conceivable the NSA has found ...".

The post seems more enthusiastic:

"the most intriguing hypotheses in the paper"

"Beginning with the smallest of the standard curves, P-256, which would now provide less than the required 128-bit security.

Did I mention that as part of the recent announcement, NSA also deprecated P-256?"

He backtracks a little in the following paragraph ("Of course, there’s no reason to believe ..."), but I think the conspiratorial tone is pretty well established by then.

It's also just the fact that he spends about a third of the post talking about this explanation without really covering any of the others. If I hadn't read the paper, I'd come away with the impression that this is the main theory they put forth.