From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:54:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:53:50 -0400 Received: from h131s117a129n47.user.nortelnetworks.com ([47.129.117.131]:9887 "HELO pcard0ks.ca.nortel.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:53:31 -0400 Message-ID: <3B8124C4.7A4275B9@nortelnetworks.com> Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 10:55:00 -0400 From: Chris Friesen X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.4.3-custom i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel Cc: Alex Bligh - linux-kernel , Oliver Xymoron , Theodore Tso , David Schwartz , Andreas Dilger Subject: Re: /dev/random in 2.4.6 In-Reply-To: <2251207905.998322034@[10.132.112.53]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Alex Bligh - linux-kernel wrote: > An alternative approach to all of this, perhaps, would be to use extremely > finely grained timers (if they exist), in which case more bits of entropy > could perhaps be derived per sample, and perhaps sample them on > more operations. I don't know what the finest resolution timer we have > is, but I'd have thought people would be happier using ANY existing > mechanism (including network IRQs) if the timer resolution was (say) > 1 nanosecond. Why don't we also switch to a cryptographically secure algorithm for /dev/urandom? Then we could seed it with a value from /dev/random and we would have a known number of cryptographically secure pseudorandom values. Once we reach the end of the png cycle, we could re-seed it with another value from /dev/random. Would this be a valid solution, or am I totally off my rocker? Chris -- Chris Friesen | MailStop: 043/33/F10 Nortel Networks | work: (613) 765-0557 3500 Carling Avenue | fax: (613) 765-2986 Nepean, ON K2H 8E9 Canada | email: cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com