Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak

[Mark Murray]

> On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Mark Murray wrote:
> 
> > > On the other hand, doing a dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/null gives me
> > > infinite "randomness" at 10MB/sec - have the semantics of /dev/random
> > > changed?
> > 
> > Yes; remember that what we have here is Yarrow algorithm; which is an
> > algorithm for cryptographically secure PRNG - one whose internal state
> > is unguessable, or if compromised folr some reason is self-recovering.
> > 
> > "Infinite" randomness is possible with this algorithm.
> 
> On the other hand, didn't you say that at system boot the RNG is
> essentially unseeded, so this is actually a liability because processes
> cannot be sure they're getting real randomness.

Until you type or move the mouse. I'm putting the rest of the harvesting
calls in today.

M
--
Mark Murray
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