From owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 20 10:32:54 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 294741065676; Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:32:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jonathan@FreeBSD.org) Received: from freefall.freebsd.org (freefall.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7F4D8FC1A; Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:32:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [::8087:9812:100:0] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.14.5/8.14.5) with ESMTP id q8KAWqdB097907; Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:32:53 GMT (envelope-from jonathan@FreeBSD.org) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:32:53 +0100 From: Jonathan Anderson To: Pawel Jakub Dawidek Message-ID: <269BF2927F4A4BB5B0F4A4155F2294A6@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20120920102104.GA1397@garage.freebsd.pl> References: <20120918211422.GA1400@garage.freebsd.pl> <20120919192923.GA1416@garage.freebsd.pl> <20120919205331.GE1416@garage.freebsd.pl> <20120919231051.4bc5335b@gumby.homeunix.com> <20120920102104.GA1397@garage.freebsd.pl> X-Mailer: sparrow 1.6.4 (build 1176) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-security@FreeBSD.org, RW , Mariusz Gromada Subject: Re: Collecting entropy from device_attach() times. X-BeenThere: freebsd-security@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Security issues \[members-only posting\]" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:32:54 -0000 On Thursday, 20 September 2012 at 11:21, Pawel Jakub Dawidek wrote: > It would be ideal if we could provide properly seeded PRNG even for > single-user mode, so eliminating initrandom altogether is also an > option Amen to that. :) As I believe theraven@ pointed out a couple of days ago: it is very silly indeed that we are taking data generated by the kernel (process table) based on presumed-pseudorandom inputs, passing it to userspace, turning it into text (via ps), hashing that text and then passing it *back* to the kernel in order to stir into the entropy pool that we could instead just build from actually-fairly-random information like device_attach() times. Jon -- Jonathan Anderson jonathan@FreeBSD.org