Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 23 Jan 2015 14:04:01 -0600 | From | Tom Zanussi <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH 10/10] drivers/char: Support compiling out the getrandom(2) syscall |
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On 01/23/2015 01:46 PM, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 12:37:16PM -0600, Tom Zanussi wrote: >> Many embedded systems have no use for getrandom, and could benefit >> from the size savings gained by omitting it. Add a new EXPERT config >> option, CONFIG_GETRANDOM_SYSCALL (default y), to support compiling it >> out. > > I'm really not sure this is a good idea. Even the tiniest embedded > device need secure crypto. In fact, one could argue that in the case > of the Internet of Things, the tiniests embedded devices > **especially** need secure crypto. It would be.... unfortunate.... if > the next time North Korea gets upset at the Great Satan, that all of > our light bulbs, refridgerators, cars, heating systems, etc., are > subject to attack. >
Right, but not everything is networked - there are standalone embedded systems that could benefit from the savings. Anyway, it's not a huge savings so I could just remove them to avoid the temptation...
Tom.
> We know already that home routers are running ancient kernels that are > absolutely no protection whatever. Is saving a few bytes really worth > potentially opening up a similar attack vector on devices that will > probably be at least an order of magnitude or more numerous than home > routers, and even harder to upgrade once they get out there? > > And if you don't have a good random number generator, you really are > *toast*. > > It's for this reason that /dev/[u]random were not eligible from being > disabled from the very beginning; it's too much of an attractive > nuisance to a clueless product manager.... > > - Ted >
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