Date: Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:54:39 +0100 From: Mark Murray <markm@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Ricardo Nabinger Sanchez <rnsanchez@wait4.org>, freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PRNG on FreeBSD Message-ID: <200610051354.k95Dsd3A047400@greatest.grondar.org>
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Robert Watson writes: > > On Wed, 4 Oct 2006, Ricardo Nabinger Sanchez wrote: > > > Snooping around Wikipedia, I got curious about if it'd worth the > > effort going from Yarrow [1] to Fortuna [2] algorithm, as the > > authors (seems to) claim that the latter is better/more secure. > > > > As someone (me) who knows very little on how to effectively > > compromise a PRNG, what are the tradeoffs? Yarrow is simpler/faster > > than Fortuna? > > Yarrow is an older PRNG algorithm, and Fortuna is (as I understand > it) generally considered its successor. Mark Murray (CC'd), who > implemented our current /dev/random and Yarrow code, has been working > on a Fortuna implementation for FreeBSD. Indeed. Fortuna is also looking like it is going to be a significant resource hog WRT memory, particularly on small/embedded devices. I'm stalled right now (exam mode for two weeks) but its top of my TODO list to get Fortuna off my chest once I'm done. I think I'm going to need a hand with the kernel bits; I keep running into problems I can't think of decent questions for. M -- Mark R V Murray - Cert APS(Open) Dip Phys(Open) BSc Open(Open) What is the most interesting question you have asked? What, if any, was the answer?
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