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Date:      Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:53:02 +0100
From:      RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com>
To:        Dag-Erling =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Sm=F8rgrav?= <des@des.no>
Cc:        Arthur Mesh <arthurmesh@gmail.com>, Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org>, freebsd-rc@freebsd.org, obrien@freebsd.org, freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r239569 - head/etc/rc.d
Message-ID:  <20120911205302.27484fd6@gumby.homeunix.com>
In-Reply-To: <86sjao7q8c.fsf@ds4.des.no>
References:  <50450F2A.10708@FreeBSD.org> <20120903203505.GN1464@x96.org> <50451D6E.30401@FreeBSD.org> <20120903214638.GO1464@x96.org> <50453686.9090100@FreeBSD.org> <20120904220754.GA3643@server.rulingia.com> <20120906174247.GB13179@dragon.NUXI.org> <20120906230157.5307a21f@gumby.homeunix.com> <20120906224703.GD89120@x96.org> <50493480.8060307@FreeBSD.org> <20120911061530.GA77399@dragon.NUXI.org> <504EDC67.9070700@FreeBSD.org> <86sjao7q8c.fsf@ds4.des.no>

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On Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:28:51 +0200
Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav wrote:

> Doug Barton <dougb@FreeBSD.org> writes:
> > 1. Pseudo-randomize the order in which we utilize the files in
> > /var/db/entropy
>=20
> 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,

It's analogous to a passphrase, have you ever heard of a
passphrase being compressed rather than hashed?=20

The only good reason for compression is if compression+hashing is
faster than hashing, and that sounds unlikely.

You all seem to be making very heavy weather of this - all that's needed
is to pass the low-grade stuff through a hash of your choice and then
follow that with the entropy file to fill-up the remaining 4k.



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