From owner-freebsd-rc@FreeBSD.ORG  Tue Sep 11 11:28:53 2012
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From: =?utf-8?Q?Dag-Erling_Sm=C3=B8rgrav?= <des@des.no>
To: Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org>
References: <50450F2A.10708@FreeBSD.org> <20120903203505.GN1464@x96.org>
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Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:28:51 +0200
In-Reply-To: <504EDC67.9070700@FreeBSD.org> (Doug Barton's message of "Mon, 10
	Sep 2012 23:38:31 -0700")
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Cc: Arthur Mesh <arthurmesh@gmail.com>, freebsd-rc@freebsd.org,
	obrien@freebsd.org, freebsd-security@freebsd.org,
	RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com>
Subject: Re: svn commit: r239569 - head/etc/rc.d
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Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> writes:
> 1. Pseudo-randomize the order in which we utilize the files in
> /var/db/entropy

There's no need for randomization if we make sure that *all* the data
written to /dev/random is used, rather than just the first 4096 bytes;
or that we reduce the amount of data to 4096 bytes before we write it so
none of it is discarded.  My gut feeling is that compression is better
than hashing for that purpose, but at this point I'd be more comfortable
if someone with an academic background in either cryptography or
statistics (cperciva@?) weighed in.

DES
--=20
Dag-Erling Sm=C3=B8rgrav - des@des.no