Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 16:04:22 +0200 From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no> Cc: Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Jeroen C. van Gelderen" <jeroen@vangelderen.org>, Mark Murray <mark@grondar.za>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please Message-ID: <44778.961423462@critter.freebsd.dk> In-Reply-To: Your message of "19 Jun 2000 15:59:32 %2B0200." <xzpsnu9u5yz.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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In message <xzpsnu9u5yz.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav writes: >Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk> writes: >> In message <xzpwvjlu9w5.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>, Dag-Erling Smorgrav writes: >> > The idea of built-in hardware RNGs bothers me a little. [...] >> And just because you went out and bought your RNG separately, what >> difference would it make ? If an RNG has a fingerprint, you may >> be identified by it, no matter where you bought it or how. > >Hmm, yes, that wasn't quite what I meant. I was actually thinking >about purpose-made RNGs vs. custom-made (e.g. lava lamp + webcam), the >idea being that with the latter, a) you know it doesn't contain an >intentional steganographic fingerprint and b) you have complete >control over the RNG and can vary its output in unpredictable ways >(moving the camera, changing the background...) which hopefully defeat >recognition without affecting randomness. Run your Intel built RNG through a cryptographic quality hash ? If you frustrate the output by running it though MD5 and feed a few random bits from your keyboard interrupt in there as well ? I wouldn't worry. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk@FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD coreteam member | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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