From owner-freebsd-current Wed Jul 19 11:14:32 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from grimreaper.grondar.za (grimreaper.grondar.za [196.7.18.138]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E73937B51B for ; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 11:14:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mark@grondar.za) Received: from grimreaper.grondar.za (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by grimreaper.grondar.za (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA00448; Wed, 19 Jul 2000 20:12:00 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from mark@grimreaper.grondar.za) Message-Id: <200007191812.UAA00448@grimreaper.grondar.za> To: Warner Losh Cc: Poul-Henning Kamp , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak References: <200007191733.LAA82735@harmony.village.org> In-Reply-To: <200007191733.LAA82735@harmony.village.org> ; from Warner Losh "Wed, 19 Jul 2000 11:33:55 CST." Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 20:11:59 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG [ A whole bunch of sane stuff removed ] > It certainly would be better than nothing and would be a decent source > of randomness. It would be my expectation that if tests were run to > measure this randomness and the crypto random tests were applied, > we'd find a fairly good source. The randomness is good, no doubt; I worry about how accessible that randomness is to an attacker? If the attacker is on your computer (he us a user, say), he might know a lot about the current frequency of your xtal. He can also get the same (remote) time offsets as you. What does that give him? Not much, but it could reduce the bits that he needs to guess. By how much? I don't know. M -- Mark Murray Join the anti-SPAM movement: http://www.cauce.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message