From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Aug 1 2:22:23 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mail-in-01.piro.net (mail-out-02.piro.net [194.64.31.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4AEE537C16E; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 02:22:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com) Received: from nil.science-factory.com (ScienceFactory-atm1-153.piro.net [195.135.137.205]) by mail-in-01.piro.net (8.9.3/8.9.3/PN-991208) with ESMTP id LAA02793; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:20:43 +0200 Received: by nil.science-factory.com (Postfix, from userid 501) id 902291F63; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:13:46 +0200 (CEST) From: Marc van Woerkom To: phk@freebsd.org Cc: hackers@freebsd.org In-reply-to: <5924.965073661@critter.freebsd.dk> (message from Poul-Henning Kamp on Mon, 31 Jul 2000 22:01:01 +0200) Subject: Re: How to make *real* random bits. References: <5924.965073661@critter.freebsd.dk> Message-Id: <20000801091346.902291F63@nil.science-factory.com> Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:13:46 +0200 (CEST) Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > I located a surplus german geiger counter cheaply [1], I have always > wanted to have one anyway, and in my junkbox I already had an old > smoke alarm [2]. The Geiger counter has a thin-walled tube which > takes about 15 events per second from the Am-241 source in the > smoke alarm. Very cool and probably a lot cheaper than professional offerings (I heard of cards with "nuclear chips"). On the other hand I wonder if this gives a practical advantage, in my naive view I would believe taping randomness from user events plus listing to hardware events (most people should have quite different hardware) would generate good enough results. Has there been any analysis that helps to estimate the difference in security? Regards, Marc To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message