From owner-freebsd-current Wed Jul 19 11:22: 2 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from rover.village.org (rover.village.org [204.144.255.49]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDADE37BFC0 for ; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 11:21:56 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from imp@harmony.village.org) Received: from harmony.village.org (harmony.village.org [10.0.0.6]) by rover.village.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA93253; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:21:55 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from imp@harmony.village.org) Received: from harmony.village.org (localhost.village.org [127.0.0.1]) by harmony.village.org (8.9.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id MAA83214; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:21:55 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200007191821.MAA83214@harmony.village.org> To: Poul-Henning Kamp Subject: Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak Cc: Mark Murray , current@FreeBSD.ORG In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 19 Jul 2000 20:09:48 +0200." <946.964030188@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <946.964030188@critter.freebsd.dk> Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 12:21:55 -0600 From: Warner Losh Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <946.964030188@critter.freebsd.dk> Poul-Henning Kamp writes: : A geiger counter and a smoke-detector would be *so much* cheaper : and give more bits per second :-) Agreed. And a lot less hassle. A *LOT* less hassle. :-) : >It certainly would be better than nothing and would be a decent source : >of randomness. It would be my expectation that if tests were run to : >measure this randomness and the crypto random tests were applied, : >we'd find a fairly good source. : : The trick here is to actually measure the quality of our entropy. : I have asked Markm to provide us with some kernel option which can : be used to get a copy of the entropy so we can study the quality : off it. Yes. That's the hard part. that's one area where my knowledge is somewhat weak. : BTW: You have *no* idea how much I envy your access to high quality : timing hardware :-) Well, there are hidden benefits working here that I never knew :-) Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message