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Date:      Wed, 25 Oct 2000 17:15:58 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Wesley Morgan <morganw@chemicals.tacorp.com>
To:        Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>
Cc:        =?koi8-r?B?4c7E0sXKIP7F0s7P1w==?= <ache@nagual.pp.ru>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: entropy reseeding is totally broken 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0010251710270.3162-100000@volatile.chemicals.tacorp.com>
In-Reply-To: <200010251737.e9PHbWR08465@grimreaper.grondar.za>

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I'm not knocking anyone or any code, especially considering this IS
-current... BUT... I don't need to read the code to know that I am seeing
the same fortunes on first login after reboot more often than I can
attribute to random chance. Maybe nanotime is being harvested, but it
seems that there is a time lag between system startup and reaching a state
of "true pseudo-entropy". Also, every reboot has entropy caching failing
to work. I don't know if this is a product of the broken reseeding or
what, because the /etc/rc files seem to be fine.

On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Mark Murray wrote:

> > 2) Reseeding state may not preserve across the boot due to various reasons
> > like panic, etc. Since _time_ is ignored, all other data /etc/rc tries to
> > collect now can be non-random _easily_!
> > 
> > Unless _time_ will be used, /dev/random is plain unusable for production
> > usage.
> 
> Andrey, read the code; nanotime is all over the harvested entropy.
> 
> M
> --
> Mark Murray
> Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org
> 
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
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