NSA is the biggest user of Magma, and the biggest employer of mathematicians in USA. Magma has the best availabile tools, in number theory and in group theory, for the kind of cryptography-related maths they need.
William Stein failed to get any grant money for SageMath from Simons, despite - or I suppose because of - being in position to develop open-source alternatives to Magma.
https://wstein.org/grants/
In an article I can't find any more he records his interactions with Simons Foundation. It's an interesting read.
EDIT: Jesus Margar (npub1zr5…7n3t) kindly pointed at the link I wasn't finding:
https://sagemath.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-simons-foundation-and-open-source.html
Dima Pasechnik 🇺🇦 🇳🇱
npub1pk…zqy0t
2025-01-21 14:51:08 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…v867
Author Public Key
npub1pkcue49c92gjkl6g5klsfsxzcejjlm7ck0f6fyk2us6svmythhwqhzqy0tSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-01-21 14:51:08 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "3c1df716917cd8f9dd607d755ddc50ee0491431be990d30341c3d7c5d3a2679a",
"pubkey": "0db1ccd4b82a912b7f48a5bf04c0c2c6652fefd8b3d3a492cae435066c8bbddc",
"created_at": 1737471068,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mathstodon.xyz/@dimpase/113866903914371608",
"web"
],
[
"p",
"10e99e7b3f0797e55e844ec30690c2f0d43243bd20fe7ea1ec2412b64fba061e"
],
[
"p",
"9a6a1a8eefd0b53d7e0c966ab35bd904151246f03b1be98fa0d2d0eeb4940320"
],
[
"e",
"887e7358f6aa1a8c35ff8f0a2d97194b8361612ecda2cb7706384835b218d24f",
"",
"root",
"9a6a1a8eefd0b53d7e0c966ab35bd904151246f03b1be98fa0d2d0eeb4940320"
],
[
"e",
"580444c8d9e6e57d5f8fcde0ee6213cd5f5acff89e0dda0ae451c587ca42acab",
"",
"reply",
"10e99e7b3f0797e55e844ec30690c2f0d43243bd20fe7ea1ec2412b64fba061e"
],
[
"p",
"0db1ccd4b82a912b7f48a5bf04c0c2c6652fefd8b3d3a492cae435066c8bbddc"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mathstodon.xyz/users/dimpase/statuses/113866903914371608",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mathstodon.xyz/users/dimpase/statuses/113866903914371608",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "NSA is the biggest user of Magma, and the biggest employer of mathematicians in USA. Magma has the best availabile tools, in number theory and in group theory, for the kind of cryptography-related maths they need.\n\nWilliam Stein failed to get any grant money for SageMath from Simons, despite - or I suppose because of - being in position to develop open-source alternatives to Magma.\nhttps://wstein.org/grants/\nIn an article I can't find any more he records his interactions with Simons Foundation. It's an interesting read.\n\nEDIT: nostr:npub1zr5eu7elq7t72h5yfmpsdyxz7r2rysaayrl8ag0vysftvna6qc0qpe7n3t kindly pointed at the link I wasn't finding:\nhttps://sagemath.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-simons-foundation-and-open-source.html",
"sig": "d1f87c94d5a60c124556cb52044efee6fd8d7d37b5fe349d78c9dfd1113781f3dfcc621acd95572799b2f63f395f952d12d155fcdc05b5498f7a7a6ec9723d47"
}