From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Aug 1 2:19:56 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mail2.netcologne.de (mail2.netcologne.de [194.8.194.103]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A9D1B37B5E9 for ; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 02:19:51 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from pherman@frenchfries.net) Received: from bagabeedaboo.security.at12.de (dial-194-8-195-28.netcologne.de [194.8.195.28]) by mail2.netcologne.de (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA15383; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:19:45 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from localhost (localhost.security.at12.de [127.0.0.1]) by bagabeedaboo.security.at12.de (8.10.2/8.10.2) with ESMTP id e719JcG00736; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:19:38 +0200 (CEST) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 11:19:37 +0200 (CEST) From: Paul Herman To: Poul-Henning Kamp Cc: Matthew Seaman , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How to make *real* random bits. In-Reply-To: <8751.965118897@critter.freebsd.dk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote: > There are many ways to get random bits, this was just meant as an > example that it doesn't have to be hard or even difficult to use > FreeBSD for "special tasks". > > I'm pretty sure that "noise-diodes" are probably the most efficient > way to generate random bits, but it doesn't measure up to a geiger- > counter when it comes to "geek value" :-) Indeed, Poul's idea has massive geek potential. However, for the geek impaired, there is always the 82802 Random Number Generator which is included on newer Intel chipsets. It may not be the holy grail of randomness, but nearly every PC will have one, and I think it'd be good if FreeBSD could at least use it to gather entropy. But, if you are gathering a geek lobby to convince Intel to have an onboard geiger counter, you just might have a new member ;-) -Paul. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message