I did some research on Google but couldn't find an answer.
So secp256k1 has this seemingly random "base point" G:
G = 04 79BE667E F9DCBBAC 55A06295 CE870B07 029BFCDB 2DCE28D9 59F2815B 16F81798 483ADA77 26A3C465 5DA4FBFC 0E1108A8 FD17B448 A6855419 9C47D08F FB10D4B8
Has anyone wondered why this point is chosen? Is it provably chosen at random, or based on some nothing-up-my-sleeve procedure?
Why not choose a point with a very small (say <10) x-coordinate?
The modular exponential Diffie-Hellman groups for IKE (
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3526) always choose the number "2" as the generator. Something similar can be done for ECC too.