Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 19:32:50 +0100 From: phk@freebsd.org To: "Andrey A. Chernov" <ache@nagual.pp.ru> Cc: Mark Murray <mark@grondar.org>, Doug Barton <DougB@freebsd.org>, Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org>, current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: rand() is broken Message-ID: <29596.1044210770@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 02 Feb 2003 21:20:09 %2B0300." <20030202182009.GA66318@nagual.pp.ru>
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In message <20030202182009.GA66318@nagual.pp.ru>, "Andrey A. Chernov" writes: >On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 17:30:48 +0000, Mark Murray wrote: >> >> Why not? Arc4 is a) deterministic and b) good for all bits. > >If you mean arc4random() function - not, because it use true randomness, >if you mean RC4 algorithm, probably yes, but we should compare its >distribution with our current variant and be sure that speed is >acceptable. What form RC4 distribution have? RC4 can be implemented in about 4 lines of C. Anyway, last time we discussed this, I think we stuck with the rand() we had because we feared that people were using it's repeatable well documented sequence of random numbers in regression testing. This is still a valid concern, but I don't know how significant a concern it is. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | 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-current" in the body of the message
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