The _NSAKEY in Microsoft's Crypto API: Facts, Fiction and Speculation

摘要

At the end of August 1999, the mainstream media carried stories of how the widely deployed cryptographic subsystems of Microsoft operating systems contained a Previously undisclosed back door for the US National Security Agency. The reports sprang From the revelation that a secondary Validation key for cryptographic modules Carries the name _NSAKEY, and an entity in Possession of the corresponding private key Would be able to authenticate cryptographic Modules additional to, or as replacements for, Those in the standard product.