NIST Elliptic Curves Seeds Bounty (2023)

This announces a funded challenge to recover the English-text preimages behind the SHA-1 seeds that produced the five prime-order NIST elliptic curves (P-192, P-224, P-256, P-384, P-521). The seeds were reportedly chosen by Jerry Solinas in 1997 from hashed English phrases and counters; those inputs were later lost, leaving a cryptographic mystery and lingering suspicion about curve selection. The organizer offers a $12,288 bounty (12 KI$), tripled to $36,864 if the winner donates it to a U.S. 501(c)(3). The goal is historical clarity and to settle residual FUD about whether the NSA engineered weak curves.

Practical details: the preimages are likely short English phrases mentioning Solinas, possibly plus a small counter, and only roughly one in 192-521 hashes yields a usable curve, so counters are expected to be modest (99% chance counter <2400 for the largest curve, <1175 for P-256). A curated list of about 12,000 candidate hashes covers ≈99% of the reasonable search space; SHA-1 is fast to test, so brute force and brainwallet techniques are appropriate. The prize splits into two halves - one for the first valid single preimage and one for the first full set of five - submissions go to [email protected] (use “ANTISPAM” and rely on Received headers to determine order), and winners may accept cash or direct triple-pay charity. Illicit methods are discouraged and the bounty lapses if the seeds become public.