Claude AI Cracks the NSA’s 25-Year Cryptography Seed Mystery

What happened

For 25 years, cryptographers suspected the NSA’s mysterious encryption (scrambling data so only the holder of the key can read it) seeds might conceal a backdoor (a hidden way into a system that bypasses its login). Anthropic’s Claude artificial intelligence (AI) cracked the puzzle in under 30 minutes, uncovering a surprisingly ordinary explanation. For decades, some of the world’s brightest cryptographers had been chasing a ghost.