From: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>,
"Jason A. Donenfeld" <Jason@zx2c4.com>,
Kir Chou <note351@hotmail.com>,
Ryan Roberts <ryan.roberts@arm.com>,
Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>, Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH next 1/7] random32: Improve security of prandom_u32_state()
Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2026 20:05:16 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20261102200522.3337-2-david.laight.linux@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261102200522.3337-1-david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
While security isn't that important in can easily be made a lot better.
The four LFSR are linear are reversable.
Combining the outputs with xor is still linear.
This means that the initial state of the prng can be trivially determined
from 113 output bits that have a known distance from that state.
(Each state bit is just the xor of some combination of the output bits.)
Replace the final xor with add making it non-linear and nothing like
as easy to invert.
Signed-off-by: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
---
lib/random32.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/lib/random32.c b/lib/random32.c
index dad90219c351..34f08f6540e6 100644
--- a/lib/random32.c
+++ b/lib/random32.c
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ u32 prandom_u32_state(struct rnd_state *state)
state->s3 = TAUSWORTHE(state->s3, 13U, 21U, 4294967280U, 7U);
state->s4 = TAUSWORTHE(state->s4, 3U, 12U, 4294967168U, 13U);
- return (state->s1 ^ state->s2 ^ state->s3 ^ state->s4);
+ return (state->s1 + state->s2 + state->s3 + state->s4);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(prandom_u32_state);
--
2.39.5
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-11-02 20:05 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-11-02 20:05 [PATCH next 0/7] random32: Improve security and simplify keying David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` David Laight [this message]
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 2/7] random32: Remove some unnecessary #includes David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 3/7] random32: Fix tests for xor -> add change to prandom_u32_state() David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 4/7] random32: Change prandom_seed_state() to be a real function David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 5/7] random32: Use add (not xor) in tools prandom_u32_state() David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 6/7] random32: prandom_seed_state() use all 64 bits of the seed David Laight
2026-11-02 20:05 ` [PATCH next 7/7] random32: Simplify prandom_seed_full_state() David Laight
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