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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
NSA Suite B Cryptography was a set of cryptographic algorithms promulgated by the National Security Agency as part of its Cryptographic Modernization Program. It was to serve as an interoperable cryptographic base for both unclassified information and most classified information.
Suite B was announced on 16 February 2005. A corresponding set of unpublished algorithms, Suite A, is "used in applications where Suite B may not be appropriate. Both Suite A and Suite B can be used to protect foreign releasable information, US-Only information, and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI)."[1]
| Purpose | Algorithm | Standard | Parameter Length | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secret | Top-Secret | ||||
| Symmetric encryption | AES | FIPS 197 | 128 | 256 | For traffic flow, AES should be used with either the Counter Mode (CTR) for low bandwidth traffic or the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) mode of operation for high bandwidth traffic (see Block cipher modes of operation). |
| Digital Signature | Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) | FIPS 186-2 | 256 | 384 | Curves P-256 and P-384, the latter providing 192-bit security. |
| Key agreement | Elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman (ECDH) | NIST SP 800-56A | 256 | 384 | Same as above. |
| Message digest | SHA-2 | FIPS 180-3 | 256 | 384 | |
In addition, "[d]uring the transition to the use of elliptic curve cryptography in ECDH and ECDSA, DH, DSA and RSA can be used with a 2048-bit modulus to protect classified information up to the SECRET level."[2]
In 2015, NSA replaced Suite B with the Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite (CNSA). The general selection of algorithms types remain unchanged. DSA was removed. DH and RSA were reclassified as "supported" instead of "legacy" with the minimum modulus size raised to 3072 bits. In 2018, the Suite B IETF RFC documents were reclassified as historical.[3]
In December 2006, NSA submitted an Internet Draft on implementing Suite B as part of IPsec. This draft had been accepted for publication by IETF as RFC 4869, later made obsolete by RFC 6379.
Certicom Corporation of Ontario, Canada, which was purchased by BlackBerry Limited in 2009,[4] holds some elliptic curve patents, which have been licensed by NSA for United States government use. These include patents on ECMQV, but ECMQV has been dropped from Suite B. AES and SHA had been previously released and have no patent restrictions. See also RFC 6090.
As of October 2012, CNSSP-15[5] stated that the 256-bit elliptic curve (specified in FIPS 186-2), SHA-256, and AES with 128-bit keys are sufficient for protecting classified information up to the Secret level, while the 384-bit elliptic curve (specified in FIPS 186-2), SHA-384, and AES with 256-bit keys are necessary for the protection of Top Secret information.
However, as of August 2015, NSA indicated that only the Top Secret algorithm strengths should be used to protect all levels of classified information.[1]
In 2018 NSA withdrew Suite B in favor of the CNSA.
Using an algorithm suitable to encrypt information is not necessarily sufficient to properly protect information. If the algorithm is not executed within a secure device the encryption keys are vulnerable to disclosure. For this reason, the US federal government requires not only the use of NIST-validated encryption algorithms, but also that they be executed in a validated Hardware Security Module (HSM) that provides physical protection of the keys and, depending on the validation level, countermeasures against electronic attacks such as differential power analysis and other side-channel attacks. For example, using AES-256 within an FIPS 140-2 validated module is sufficient to encrypt only US Government sensitive, unclassified data. This same notion applies to the other algorithms.
In August 2015, NSA announced that it is planning to transition "in the not too distant future" to a new cipher suite that is resistant to quantum attacks. "Unfortunately, the growth of elliptic curve use has bumped up against the fact of continued progress in the research on quantum computing, necessitating a re-evaluation of our cryptographic strategy." NSA advised: "For those partners and vendors that have not yet made the transition to Suite B algorithms, we recommend not making a significant expenditure to do so at this point but instead to prepare for the upcoming quantum resistant algorithm transition."[1] New standards are estimated to be published around 2024.[6]
The Suite B algorithms have been replaced by Commercial National Security Algorithm (CNSA) Suite algorithms in 2015.[7]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
NSA Suite B Cryptography was a set of cryptographic algorithms promulgated by the National Security Agency as part of its Cryptographic Modernization Program. It was to serve as an interoperable cryptographic base for both unclassified information and most classified information. Suite B was announced on 16 February 2005. A corresponding set of unpublished algorithms, Suite A, is "used in applications where Suite B may not be appropriate. Both Suite A and Suite B can be used to protect foreign releasable information, US-Only information, and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI)." In addition, "[d]uring the transition to the use of elliptic curve cryptography in ECDH and ECDSA, DH, DSA and RSA can be used with a 2048-bit modulus to protect classified information up to the SECRET level." In 2015, NSA replaced Suite B with the Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite (CNSA). The general selection of algorithms types remain unchanged. DSA was removed. DH and RSA were reclassified as "supported" instead of "legacy" with the minimum modulus size raised to 3072 bits. In 2018, the Suite B IETF RFC documents were reclassified as historical.
Hash-based cryptography is the generic term for constructions of cryptographic primitives based on the security of hash functions. It is of interest as a type of post-quantum cryptography. So far, hash-based cryptography is used to construct digital signatures schemes such as the Merkle signature scheme, zero knowledge and computationally integrity proofs, such as the zk-STARK proof system and range proofs over issued credentials via the HashWires protocol. Hash-based signature schemes combine a one-time signature scheme, such as a Lamport signature, with a Merkle tree structure. Since a one-time signature scheme key can only sign a single message securely, it is practical to combine many such keys within a single, larger structure. A Merkle tree structure is used to this end. In this hierarchical data structure, a hash function and concatenation are used repeatedly to compute tree nodes. One consideration with hash-based signature schemes is that they can only sign a limited number of messages securely, because of their use of one-time signature schemes. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), specified that algorithms in its post-quantum cryptography competition support a minimum of 264 signatures safely. NIST standardized stateful hash-based cryptography based on the eXtended Merkle Signature Scheme (XMSS) and Leighton–Micali Signatures (LMS), which are applicable in different circumstances, in 2020, but noted that the requirement to maintain state when using them makes them more difficult to implement in a way that avoids misuse. In 2022, NIST announced SPHINCS+ as one of three algorithms to be standardized for digital signatures. and in 2024 NIST announced the Stateless Hash-Based Digital Signature Standard (SLH-DSA) based on SPHINCS+.
In cryptography, the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) offers a variant of the Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA) which uses elliptic-curve cryptography.
SPHINCS+ is a post quantum digital signature scheme that is based on cryptographic hash functions. As a part of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization process, a version of the scheme was elected by the NIST to be the basis of the Stateless Hash-based Digital Signature Algorithm (SLH-DSA) and was standardized as FIPS 205.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.