C.This less-than-transparent behaviour on the part of #NIST, when added to all their #machinations trying to obscure the deep involvement of the #NSA in the competition, instead attributing NSA's work to NIST itself, is troubling.
To a conspiratorially-minded person, Occam's Razor might suggest that it was NSA's #attempt to get the world to #standardize on #encryption that is much #weaker than claimed - i.e., encryption that they know they can already #break.