From owner-freebsd-current Mon Jul 17 1:41:34 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from grimreaper.grondar.za (markm.ops.uunet.co.za [196.31.2.167]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 938C537B816; Mon, 17 Jul 2000 01:41:26 -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 KAA00475; Mon, 17 Jul 2000 10:42:42 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from mark@grimreaper.grondar.za) Message-Id: <200007170842.KAA00475@grimreaper.grondar.za> To: Kris Kennaway Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak References: In-Reply-To: ; from Kris Kennaway "Mon, 17 Jul 2000 00:04:58 MST." Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 10:42:42 +0200 From: Mark Murray Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Mark Murray wrote: > > > > On the other hand, doing a dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null gives me > > > infinite "randomness" at 10MB/sec - have the semantics of /dev/random > > > changed? > > > > Yes; remember that what we have here is Yarrow algorithm; which is an > > algorithm for cryptographically secure PRNG - one whose internal state > > is unguessable, or if compromised folr some reason is self-recovering. > > > > "Infinite" randomness is possible with this algorithm. > > On the other hand, didn't you say that at system boot the RNG is > essentially unseeded, so this is actually a liability because processes > cannot be sure they're getting real randomness. Until you type or move the mouse. I'm putting the rest of the harvesting calls in today. 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