From owner-freebsd-arch Mon Jun 19 6: 3:20 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.40.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CBF837B702; Mon, 19 Jun 2000 06:02:29 -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 PAA44445; Mon, 19 Jun 2000 15:02:17 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav Cc: Dan Moschuk , "Jeroen C. van Gelderen" , Mark Murray , arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please In-reply-to: Your message of "19 Jun 2000 14:34:50 +0200." Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 15:02:17 +0200 Message-ID: <44443.961419737@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG In message , Dag-Erling Smorgrav writes: >Dan Moschuk writes: >> I have a driver for the i82802 chipset (Intel Thermal Noise RNG) that >> needs to be newbus-ified before committing. Anyone that can help me >> with this, it would be appreciated. > >The idea of built-in hardware RNGs bothers me a little. How can the >manufacturer guarantee that all units are perfectly identical and >indistinguishable? Is it conceivable that a hardware RNG might leave >(be it by accident or by design) some kind of fingerprint in its >output that might be detectable if you know what to look for? Reminds >me of Sherlock Holmes comparing typewritten documents to see if they >were produced on the same typewriter. And just because you went out and bought your RNG separately, what difference would it make ? If an RNG has a fingerprint, you may be identified by it, no matter where you bought it or how. The trick is to not use too many of your bits too fast. -- 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-arch" in the body of the message