kernel & entropy: introducing video-entropyd

kernel & entropy: introducing video-entropyd

[Folkert van Heusden]

Copy & paste from its webpage ( http://www.vanheusden.com/ved/ ):

video-entropyd
For security reasons (when doing network traffic or generating secure keys
for example) one wants as much entropy-data in the kernel random-driver as
possible. The random-driver takes partially care for this itself. But in
situations in where there's a lot of demand for entropy-data, it might not
be able to gather enough entropy-data by itself.
That's where this program is for: adding entropy-data to the kernel-driver.
It does that by fetching 2 images from a video4linux-device (with a random
delay in between), calculating the difference between those two and then
calculating the number of information-bits in that data. After that, the
data with the number-of-entropy-bits is submitted to the
kernel-random-driver.
After that, the program exits. That is because I am assuming you also want
to use your video4linux-device for other things. So run this program every
minute (or so) from crontab.
I tested this program with a Philips webcam.
http://www.vanheusden.com/ved/

You also might want to take a look at audio-entropyd:
http://www.mindrot.org/audio-entropyd.html


Folkert.

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Folkert van Heusden
Mobile phone: +31-6-41278122
Work e-mail address: f.v.heusden@ftr.nl
ICQ number: 105675015
PGP-key available on request
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