From owner-freebsd-chat  Tue Jun  1 21:58:57 1999
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Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 23:58:29 -0500
From: "Matthew D. Fuller" <fullermd@futuresouth.com>
To: Kris Kennaway <kkennawa@physics.adelaide.edu.au>
Cc: "Daniel O'Connor" <doconnor@gsoft.com.au>, chat@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: FreeBSD & X
Message-ID: <19990601235828.Y6251@futuresouth.com>
References: <19990601234004.W6251@futuresouth.com> <Pine.OSF.4.10.9906021417590.21520-100000@bragg>
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.4.10.9906021417590.21520-100000@bragg>; from Kris Kennaway on Wed, Jun 02, 1999 at 02:21:05PM +0930
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On Wed, Jun 02, 1999 at 02:21:05PM +0930, a little birdie told me
that Kris Kennaway remarked
> > 
> > # Generate the cookie in multiple parts, just for added safety
> > key1=`/usr/bin/vmstat -i | /sbin/md5`
> > key2=`/usr/bin/netstat -i | /sbin/md5`
> > key3=`/bin/ps -gaxuww | /sbin/md5`
> > key4=`/usr/sbin/pstat -f | /sbin/md5`
> 
> Why not just 
> 
> dd if=/dev/urandom bs=<whatever>

Boring!  :)
Anyone who'll sacrifice beauty for a little extra randomness shouldn't be
running X anyway   ;>


> The above doesn't give all that good randomization of your key..

Actually, it gives a pretty good bit of randomization with md5; it's
certainly not absolutely secure, but it'll stand up to any casual attacks.
In fact, dd'ing from /dev/random | md5 'looks' less random to my eye; I
haven't done any in-depth tests of either, but I think it falls pretty
deep into 'plenty good enough'.



-- 

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
| Matthew Fuller    MF4839    http://www.over-yonder.net/ |
* fullermd@futuresouth.com       fullermd@over-yonder.net *
| UNIX Systems Administrator      Specializing in FreeBSD |
*   FutureSouth Communications   ISPHelp ISP Consulting   *
|  "The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends,   |
*    is because I haven't figured out how to light the    *
|                     middle yet"                         |
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