Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Mon, 01 Oct 2001 22:55:26 +0100 | From | Alex Bligh - linux-kernel <> | Subject | Re: /dev/random entropy calculations broken? |
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--On Monday, 01 October, 2001 10:59 AM -0600 Andreas Dilger <adilger@turbolabs.com> wrote:
> Has anyone even checked whether the current entropy estimates even work > properly?
And while we're at it, many things which add to entropy are observable by non-root users (interupt timings always, mouse movements, keypresses if a non-root user is logged in at the console). And entropy is overestimate on some non-x86 platforms due to lack of fine-grained timer implementations. And without Robert Love's patch the choice of whether to source it from network events is completely arbitrary (NIC dependent)
However, unless one is worried about someone having broken SHA-1 OR one is worried about annoying blocking behavour on read(), I'm not convinced the entropy calculation is doing anything useful anyway.
People do, however, seem particularly reluctant to accept any change in this area.
-- Alex Bligh - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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