Claude cracks 27-year-old ECDSA RNG origin mystery in 30 minutes that humans and a $36,864 bounty couldn't
DavidovicZuki · reddit · 2026-10-17
Anthropic research: the origin of the ECDSA curve RNG seeds — hunted since 1999 by humans with an NSA mathematician's clue (which turned out wrong) and a $36,864 bounty, stumping even Anthropic's own staff — was solved by Claude in under 30 minutes. With no hints, Claude noticed each row of 20 numbers never exceeded 2.1 billion (1-in-5,800 odds), ran the NSA's generator 36,820 steps backwards, tested 34 combos of 1990s random functions, matched the irand48 variant, and pinpointed the exact second: Aug 16, 1997, 01:52:34 UTC. The bounty goes to Let's Encrypt.
Related event: Claude Cracks Decades-Old ECDSA Curve Seed Mystery in Under 30 Minutes(27 posts)→
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