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Date:      Mon, 26 Feb 2001 12:49:20 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        kris@obsecurity.org (Kris Kennaway)
Cc:        tlambert@primenet.com (Terry Lambert), kris@obsecurity.org (Kris Kennaway), arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: ports/astro/xglobe/files patch-random
Message-ID:  <200102261249.FAA16208@usr05.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <20010225193157.A16118@mollari.cthul.hu> from "Kris Kennaway" at Feb 25, 2001 07:31:57 PM

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> > Ignoring that, what makes you think you can come up with a better
> > algorithm than Donald Knuth?
> 
> Me? No, but others have done so.  Terry, the existing rand() is a bad
> algorithm just about any way you look at it.

It's useful because it creates repeatable results with the
same seed, which are the same for the same seed on other
platforms.

We have supposed cryptographically strong random numbers from
/dev/random.

Are you going to replace the 48 bit algorithm with an algorithm
that's cryptographically strong?

If you do, could you put it on the bottom of /dev/random and
kill of the "entropy harvesting" so I can use my 386 machines
again?

At least let it be a compile time option, set in make.conf.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.

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