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Date:      Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:14:24 +0100
From:      Ben Laurie <benl@freebsd.org>
To:        Mark Murray <mark@grondar.org>, Mark Murray <markm@freebsd.org>
Cc:        Arthur Mesh <arthurmesh@gmail.com>, Ian Lepore <freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org>, Doug Barton <dougb@freebsd.org>, freebsd-security@freebsd.org, RW <rwmaillists@googlemail.com>, "Bjoern A. Zeeb" <bz@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: svn commit: r239569 - head/etc/rc.d
Message-ID:  <CAG5KPzzRxzVX-%2B9fYjRdqjY-wScbM6AA7GYtLmktgMG0Zg8iyQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <E1TCbDG-0002Hz-9D@groundzero.grondar.org>
References:  <50453686.9090100@FreeBSD.org> <20120911082309.GD72584@dragon.NUXI.org> <504F0687.7020309@FreeBSD.org> <201209121628.18088.jhb@freebsd.org> <5050F477.8060409@FreeBSD.org> <20120912213141.GI14077@x96.org> <20120913052431.GA15052@dragon.NUXI.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1209131258210.13080@ai.fobar.qr> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1209141336170.13080@ai.fobar.qr> <E1TCXN0-000NFT-7I@groundzero.grondar.org> <CAG5KPzwOdCkybj3D5uic1KC-pwW-pewgsrqrXg60f5SJjtzYPw@mail.gmail.com> <E1TCbDG-0002Hz-9D@groundzero.grondar.org>

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On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 8:06 PM, Mark Murray <mark@grondar.org> wrote:
> Ben Laurie writes:
>> > I'll send patches (untested) in a couple of hours for discussion.
>>
>> I used to like this idea, but it can break pretty badly if you repeat
>> input, so in the end I decided hashes were the only safe way.
>
> What??! Have you seen how Yarrow does its harvesting??

If you XOR into the as-yet-unharvested buffer, then appropriately
aligned repeated input makes the buffer zero.

>
> Presupposing there is no other source of randomness to get swamped out of the way,
>
> $ cat /dev/zero > /dev/random  # pretend that /dev/zero is finite length.
>
> ... is harmless, and actually adds a small bit of perturbation to the entropy.
>
> Please explain how repeating input can "break" things here?
>
> M
> --
> Mark R V Murray
> Pi: 132511160
>



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