From owner-freebsd-current Sun Jul 23 6: 6:52 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (beachchick.freebsd.dk [212.242.32.208]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 26E0A37BBB3 for ; Sun, 23 Jul 2000 06:06:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA03663; Sun, 23 Jul 2000 15:06:34 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Stefan `Sec` Zehl Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak In-reply-to: Your message of "Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:53:50 +0200." <200007231253.OAA28448@matrix.42.org> Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2000 15:06:34 +0200 Message-ID: <3661.964357594@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message <200007231253.OAA28448@matrix.42.org>, Stefan `Sec` Zehl writes: >Assume I want to encrypt a message by XOR'ing with randomness. > >If I then exchange my keys securely, the message is uncrackable. > >With the current approach it has a 256bits key. This is, in my eyes, not >good. Although yarrow is nice, It's suited for any kind of key >generation. The first law of crypto clearly states: "Know what you're doing". There is no way around that law. We cannot load down FreeBSD with impossibly heavy computations to cater for any and all conceiveable application of random numbers. In particular I fear that the current implementation already has killed battery lifetimes on laptops :-( -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD coreteam member | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message