Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 15:21:38 +0200 From: Mel <fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /dev/random question Message-ID: <200709161521.39955.fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> In-Reply-To: <20070916020126.06cf26ac@gumby.homeunix.com.> References: <20070913153630.GA9448@slackbox.xs4all.nl> <BMEDLGAENEKCJFGODFOCCEGHCAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> <20070916020126.06cf26ac@gumby.homeunix.com.>
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On Sunday 16 September 2007 03:01:26 RW wrote: > Essentially what has happened is that /dev/random has been abandoned in > favour of a better /dev/urandom, and that seems to be a bit high-handed > to me. Not high-handed. Logical. The difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom was that /dev/random could block IO if it didn't have enough entropy and /dev/urandom guaranteed to not block. The underlying algorithm creating the random was at the discretion of the implementers. So what you had was a highway (urandom) and a road with traffic lights (random). The need for the traffic lights has been removed, so there is no logic in not calling it a highway. People travelling the random road, will simply account for the possibility a traffic light comes up, which never does. -- Mel
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