Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 08:55:54 -0700 From: Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org> To: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no> Cc: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (2nd iteration) New /dev/(random|null|zero) - review, please Message-ID: <200006191555.IAA08463@mass.osd.bsdi.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "19 Jun 2000 14:34:50 %2B0200." <xzpwvjlu9w5.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no>
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> Dan Moschuk <dan@FreeBSD.ORG> writes: > > I have a driver for the i82802 chipset (Intel Thermal Noise RNG) that > > needs to be newbus-ified before committing. Anyone that can help me > > with this, it would be appreciated. > > The idea of built-in hardware RNGs bothers me a little. How can the > manufacturer guarantee that all units are perfectly identical and > indistinguishable? Is it conceivable that a hardware RNG might leave > (be it by accident or by design) some kind of fingerprint in its > output that might be detectable if you know what to look for? Reminds > me of Sherlock Holmes comparing typewritten documents to see if they > were produced on the same typewriter. A thermal noise source bases its output on quantum events. The art of producing well-balanced output from these devices has been long established (they're traditionally used as noise sources), and short of using eg. a cosmic-noise detector you're not going to get much more random in a box. You're welcome to perform your own analysis, of course, or go read the literature. Personally, I'm pretty happy to see this animal, and will remain so until someone tells me it's not as good as it should be. 8) -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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