Strange, I didn't expect Rambus to be involved in cryptography, nor that they would give away the spec and implementation. I guess it was designed to be a smaller die-area solution for some of their silicon IP products, and opening it up just makes it more convenient for their customers to use. (And, hopefully, nobody is stupid enough to use some vendor's secret proprietary crypto in their chips).

I'd be interested to read a history of Rambus. They're a strange and somewhat controversial company. I lived through the controversy but I'm not certain I remember it correctly. From what I remember they patented some things related to DDR SDRAM, I'm not sure how much credit they deserve for developing those things or if they were just first to file. For part of the Pentium 4's lifecycle they convinced Intel to use Rambus' proprietary DRAM (RDRAM) which supposedly had some benefits but I just remember being overpriced. They shook down DDR manufacturers for patent licensing fees. Apparently the EU opened an antitrust investigation into them for getting their patents into the standard and then not licensing them freely enough. I'm not sure it's fair to call them a patent troll but I guess they're something similar to Fraunhofer or Synopsis.

Rambus was pretty well known for using a submarine patent against RAM manufacturers back in late nineties https://www.edn.com/submarine-patents-could-torpedo-rambus/ followed by fifteen years of acting like a patent troll...

They may have good tech but have an history of being super shady.

This comment is cringe enough that it is making the rounds on multiple Slacks. It's fine that you've never heard of Curve448. That just means you're not a cryptography engineer. Most people aren't! But if you're not one of those, be a little careful about connecting the dots to things like "Crypto AG". Saying "I've never heard of Curve448, it sounds sketchy" is a little like a systems programmer saying "I've never heard of Paxos before, it sounds sketchy". Most systems programmers are never going to do anything with Paxos. But all the competent ones can look it up in about 20 seconds and confirm that it isn't a conspiracy.

Not sure about Crypto AG level shardy. But they are still shady. When I see Rambus I think "patent troll".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus

> Rambus was accused of shredding key documents prior to court hearings, the judge agreed and dismissed Rambus' case against Infineon. T

> On January 9, 2009, a Delaware federal judge ruled that Rambus could not enforce patents against Micron Technology Inc., stating that Rambus had a "clear and convincing" show of bad faith, and ruled that Rambus' destruction of key related documents (spoliation of evidence) nullified its right to enforce its patents against Micron.[28]

> Rambus engaged in intentional deceptive conduct in the context of the standard-setting process for example by not disclosing the existence of the patents which it later claimed were relevant to the adopted standard. This type of behavior is known as a "patent ambush".

> Ronald Black, Rambus's CEO, said, "Somehow we got thrown into the patent troll bunch...This is just not the case."[43]

See, they are the good guys after all. It came right from their CEO. /s

If someone is acting like this then shows up with a "here is a cool curve you can use", not surprising people will be suspicious. It's like that neighbor who has been suing everyone in the neighborhood, and calling the cops on kids playing outside, all of the sudden shows with a plate of cookies. People will think twice before trying a cookie.

Rambus is an interesting company. I can't vouch for their crypto offerings, but they have been around since the 90's and at one point pioneered high-speed DRAM interfaces. Lots of what we see in DDR today is based on ideas and concepts they pushed forward in their proprietary interface. Early on, they definitely did innovative work.

IIRC, their interfaces were used in some Sony play-stations and also some Intel systems.

That particular curve was chosen for specific technical reasons:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve448

My fellow comments aren't actually getting to the point: The original release of the Pentium 4 used Rambus RAM, instead of the JEDEC standard of the time.

This Pentium 4 was released in the year 2000.

So, yes, Rambus, the company, is a known quantity. Just weird they're into crypto now, because trying to wiggle into this already crowded patent landmine is certainty an... interesting choice.