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EVENT / TOPICHistorical

Claude Breaks 25‑Year‑Old NSA Elliptic‑Curve Signature Seed Puzzle

1 reports1 sources10/17/2026 updated

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Anthropic’s language model Claude cracked a 25‑year‑old NSA elliptic‑curve signature seed puzzle in under 30 minutes. The seed was traced to the lrand48 random number generator, initialized with a Unix timestamp from 1997‑1998, indicating no back‑door risk. Anthropic donated the $36,864 prize to the Internet Security Research Group.

Written with AI from the reporting · updated 10/17/2026

Latest developmentOct 17, 22:42
Anthropic's Claude solves 25-year-old NSA cryptography mystery in under 30 minutes
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  1. 1Unclassified fact stationOct 17, 23:32single sourcereport-time onlyrevised

    Anthropic 的 Claude 在 30 分钟内破解 25 年前 NSA 加密谜题

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    Oct 17, 22:42
    First seen (known side)：
    Oct 17, 23:32
    Fact stationSingle source · one-sided claimRevisedReport-time only

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Oct 17
  1. The DecoderRelated fact: single sourceFact occurrence time unverifiedSource report revised
    Anthropic's Claude solves 25-year-old NSA cryptography mystery in under 30 minutes

    Report first recorded Oct 17, 23:32

    Anthropic's AI model Claude solved a 25-year-old cryptography mystery by identifying the seeds for NIST's P-256 elliptic curve parameters. The seeds originated from the C random number generator lrand48, initialized with a Unix timestamp between May 1997 and April 1998. Claude identified the pattern because lrand48 only outputs 31 bits, leaving the top bits of some seeds systematically zero. Anthropic is donating the $36,864 bounty to the Internet Security Research Group.

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