Re: Mail-Followup-To

2013-03-30 Thread Werner Koch 
On Sat, 30 Mar 2013 03:20, j...@berklix.com said:

> A person at my site regularly uses an EXMH on a slow X display
> started from xdm, with AMD + NFS ~/mail/ on a faster server, works fine.

Slow in the mid 90ies was an ISDN data rate and a high latency due to
too many hops.  It was barely impossible to have a stable X connection
from an E1 in Frankfurt to my ISDN line in Düsseldorf.

Switching to Mutt was much simpler; and it worked.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner

-- 
Die Gedanken sind frei.  Ausnahmen regelt ein Bundesgesetz.


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Re: GnuPG Crashing on Windows 8

2013-03-30 Thread Jerry 
On Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:13:17 +0400
Kristine Concha articulated:

> GnuPG is crashing on my Windows 8 machine:
> Gpg4win
> Version 2.1.0
> Kleopatra
> Version 2.1.0
> Using KDE 4.1.4

Please do not use HTML format with a mailing list. It makes replying to
a post a lot harder than it needs to be.

You might want to check out this url:
.
It should assist in getting a useful back trace of the application when
it faults.

-- 
Jerry ♔

Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored.
Please do not ignore the Reply-To header.
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How insecure is using /dev/random for entropy generation?

2013-03-30 Thread Anthony Papillion 
Hello Everyone,

I meed to generate a new key and want to make sure I create enough
entropy to make the key secure. My normal method is to type on the
keyboard, start large programs, etc. But a friend suggested that I use
/dev/random.

Is this suitable for creating a PGP key? I've got concerns.

Thoughts?

Anthony

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Re: How insecure is using /dev/random for entropy generation?

2013-03-30 Thread Hauke Laging 
Am Sa 30.03.2013, 20:50:48 schrieb Anthony Papillion:

> I meed to generate a new key and want to make sure I create enough
> entropy to make the key secure. My normal method is to type on the
> keyboard, start large programs, etc. But a friend suggested that I use
> /dev/random.

gpg uses /dev/random. That's why key generation usually blocks due to lack of
entropy if you do it right and boot a secure medium for key generation.

The kernel fills /dev/random from e.g. key strokes, disk accesses, and (if
available and configured) internal CPU state (havaged) or a real hardware
number generator. The kernel should take care that the entropy in /dev/random
is "perfect".

The amount of available entropy can be seen in
/proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail

To my knowledge it is not possible (without source code change) to make gpg
use another source than /dev/random. But I don't know whether it checks just
the path or the device number... ;-)


Hauke
--
☺
PGP: 7D82 FB9F D25A 2CE4 5241 6C37 BF4B 8EEF 1A57 1DF5 (seit 2012-11-04)
http://www.openpgp-schulungen.de/


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Re: How insecure is using /dev/random for entropy generation?

2013-03-30 Thread Robert J. Hansen 
On 3/30/2013 9:50 PM, Anthony Papillion wrote:
> I meed to generate a new key and want to make sure I create enough
> entropy to make the key secure. My normal method is to type on the
> keyboard, start large programs, etc. But a friend suggested that I use
> /dev/random.
> 
> Is this suitable for creating a PGP key? I've got concerns.

By default, GnuPG uses RNGs that are as high-quality as the operating
system provides.  However, since there's no standard RNG across
operating systems, GnuPG has no standard RNG, either.  On Win32 GnuPG
uses the Win32 API and CryptGenRandom; on many UNIXes it uses
/dev/random; I don't know what the OpenVMS port uses but I rather doubt
it's either /dev/random or CryptGenRandom.  :)

The best advice I can give you is "use whatever GnuPG uses by default
for your operating system."  It's the default for a reason: namely, it's
safe and known to work well.  :)



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