Claude traced the six NIST prime192/prime239 ECDSA curve seeds to Unix timestamps used to initialize a 1990s C library random-number generator. Reproducing the generator’s output from those seeds yields the published base-point coordinates, supporting an ordinary generation process rather than a deliberately planted backdoor, as Anthropic’s write-up explains. The seeds were long questioned because the NSA supplied the curves without explaining how they were chosen, leaving open the possibility of hidden weakness.

Claude traced the six NIST prime192/prime239 ECDSA curve seeds to Unix timestamps used to initialize a 1990s C library random-number generator. Reproducing the generator’s output from those seeds yields the published base-point coordinates, supporting an ordinary generation process rather than a deliberately planted backdoor, as Anthropic’s write-up explains. The seeds were long questioned because the NSA supplied the curves without explaining how they were chosen, leaving open the possibility of hidden weakness.

Bitcoin is unaffected by this finding: it uses secp256k1, which was not among the NIST curves examined. The discovery also does not resolve Bitcoin’s separate potential quantum-computing risk, as CoinDesk reports.