Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 20 May 1996 12:00:27 +0200 | From | Harald Anlauf <> | Subject | Re: CONFIG_RANDOM (compromise?) |
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>>>>> "tytso" == "Theodore Y Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU> writes:
tytso> From: lilo <TaRDiS@Mail.UTexas.EDU> tytso> As long as these devices don't have the same minor numbers.
This will require a modified MAKEDEV script that knows how you compiled your current kernel ...
tytso> If you're going to be using a pseudo-random number generator, then it tytso> doesn't belong in the kernel at all.
Yes. (It would be too much overhead for a user-level program anyway).
tytso> The whole reason for putting a /dev/random driver into the kernel was tytso> because it had access to low-level timing information which you couldn't tytso> efficiently obtain from a user-mode program.
Now that is an important point.
Theodore: Let me ask you a question regarding real security.
If somebody (else) runs a process constantly sucking numbers from /dev/random on an (maybe your) essentially "idle" machine, i.e. with little activity on keyboard, disk, network, etc., can you still guarantee that _you_ still get sufficiently good random numbers from /dev/random, to prevent any attacks, even if this "somebody else" communicates these numbers to an assumed attacker? (Do not assume that you can use e.g. the Pentium time stamp register).
Cheers, -Harald
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