On Tue, 15 Jul 2014, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
But if we get all applications to use the same library, we can
abstract away not only differences in operating system but also
security policies vis-a-vis DRBG/NDRBG blocking/nonblocking. So what
*I* would prefer is a library interface where the application declares
what it wants the random numbers for:
* Monte carlo simulations
* Padding
* IV
* Session key
* long-term key
[...]
Basically, I don't want to leave this choice up to the application
writer, since many application writers won't be competent to make this
choice, and having consistency across different applications which are
conform to the organization's designated security officer seems to be
something that at least some organizations would want.
I'm not confident that [all] application writers will even be competent to
correctly choose amongst the 5 listed uses [plus whatever others might be
added]. If it stays a small number of easily identified things, it might
still be better than only exposing the blocking/nonblocking-ness directly,
but it doesn't seem clear-cut to me.
BTW, FreeBSD exposes a sysctl MIB (CTL_KERN.KERN_ARND) to get entropy
directly, saving syscalls over open("/dev/[u]random")/read()/close().
-Ben
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