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Date:      Sun, 27 Aug 2000 22:37:03 +0200
From:      Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>
To:        Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>
Cc:        current@FreeBSD.ORG, kris@FreeBSD.ORG, jeroen@vangelderen.org
Subject:   Re: yarrow & /dev/random 
Message-ID:  <200008272037.e7RKb3p29908@grimreaper.grondar.za>
In-Reply-To: <200008271611.LAA07481@cypherspace.org> ; from Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org>  "Sun, 27 Aug 2000 11:11:55 EST."
References:  <200008271611.LAA07481@cypherspace.org> 

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> > That works with what I already have: cat $privatekey > /dev/random :-)
> 
> Yes.  But the /dev/random device is traditionally crw-r--r-- which
> means user processes can't write to it.  So you'd have to be root to
> do that.

I go one further; at close, I do an explicit reseed, and I make sure
that it is root doing the writing.
 
> What could be done for yarrow is to change the device permissions to
> crw-rw-rw- and mix into a shared user source and set k_of_n_thresh so
> that the user can only trigger fast reseeds, and consider slow reseed
> de-skewing function output for blocking /dev/random; or just add user
> input with an entropy estimate of 0 so they can't affect reseeding,
> and draw fast reseed de-skewing function output for block /dev/random
> (slow output may be too slow).

The estimate for "user" (really root) input is currently 0, except
that I tie it to explicit (fast) reseeds. It shouldn't be a problem to
tie it to a trickle-feed, and allow that to do fast-only reseeds after
considerable lengths of time.

M

--
Mark Murray
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