On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Mark S. Miller <erig...@google.com> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 11:13 AM, David Wagner <d...@cs.berkeley.edu>wrote: > >> Shabsi Walfish wrote (quoting from the urandom(4) man page): >> > A read from the */dev/urandom* device will not block waiting for more >> > entropy. As a result, if there is not sufficient entropy in the entropy >> > pool, the returned values are theoretically vulnerable to a >> cryptographic >> > attack on the algorithms used by the driver. Knowledge of how to do >> > this is not available in the current non-classified literature, but it >> > is theoretically possible that such an attack may exist. If this is a >> > concern in your application, use */dev/random* instead. >> >> This is total FUD. I've long complained about the fact that this is in >> the urandom(4) man page, as it leads to widespread misconceptions, but >> it's never been fixed. I don't want to waste the time of people on this >> mailing list deconstructing this statement in detail, > > > Hi David, please feel free to, or to point at pages where we can read more > about this specific issue. This issue seems to be the only significant > remaining controversy here, so more words settling it more decisively would > be welcome. Thanks. > Sorry. I was reading email non-chronologically this morning. I see that you have posted much more. If you feel this point is now adequately covered, please ignore. Thanks. > > > > >> so I'll just say: >> >> Please ignore this part of the /dev/urandom man page. It's bogus and >> not a good source for how to think about crypto-quality randomness. >> >> (To share an analogy, the quote above is analogous to saying >> "SSL is theoretically vulnerable to a cryptographic attack on the >> algorithms it uses. Knowledge of how to do this is not available in >> the non-classified literature, but it is theoretically possible that >> such an attack may exist. If this is a concern in your application, >> turn off your computer instead.") >> _______________________________________________ >> es-discuss mailing list >> es-discuss@mozilla.org >> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss >> > > > > -- > Cheers, > --MarkM > -- Cheers, --MarkM
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