Small Victory Against NSA: Amendment Says NIST No Longer Has To Consult NSA On Standards
Even as major NSA reform appears to have become a cruel joke, there are still some small wins happening elsewhere. As noted by Access, the House Science and Technology Committee adopted an amendment to the FIRST Act (Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology -- which is supposed to be about increasing funding in science and technology) that says the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) no longer has to consult with the NSA on encryption standards.
As you may recall, the NSA secretly took over an encryption standard, purposely weakened it, paid RSA to make it a "default" in one of its products and basically weakened everyone's security. NIST has been dealing with the consequences ever since.


