Messages in this thread | | | From | (David Wagner) | Subject | Re: use of add_interrupt_randomness in drivers missing in many drivers | Date | 18 Oct 2000 21:22:16 GMT |
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Horst von Brand wrote: >Adding stuff that adds no entropy (or at least doesn't add to the estimated >entropy pool) is just a waste of effort, AFAIKS.
Adding stuff that has no entropy is a waste of effort.
Adding stuff that probably has entropy, but where you don't bump the entropy counter, *does* add value.
The entropy counter is a conservative estimate of how much entropy you can safely rely on being present.
It's still useful to add more entropy to the pool -- even if it's not reflected in the counter -- because it reduces the chances of a catastrophic randomness failure. (What if you over-estimated, or if one of your sources failed and became predictable, e.g., because the attacker started jamming your GPS from a van parked outside your building?)
It pays to be (prudently) paranoid, in this business. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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