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From: "David Schwartz" <davids@webmaster.com>
To: "Theodore Tso" <tytso@mit.edu>, <jreiser@bitwagon.com>
Cc: "Matt Mackall" <mpm@selenic.com>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	<security@kernel.org>
Subject: RE: /dev/urandom uses uninit bytes, leaks user data
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:59:04 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <MDEHLPKNGKAHNMBLJOLKAELOIOAC.davids@webmaster.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4766A40D.4080804@BitWagon.com>


> The bottom line:  At a cost of at most three unpredictable branches
> (whether to clear the bytes in the last word with indices congruent
> to 1, 2, or 3 modulo 4), then the code can reduce the risk from something
> small but positive, to zero.  This is very inexpensive insurance.

> John Reiser, jreiser@BitWagon.com

Even if you're right, the change isn't free. You've simply presented
evidence of one non-zero benefit of it. You've given no ability to assess
the size of this benefit and no way to figure if it exceeds the cost. There
is also a non-zero *security* cost to this change.

DS



  parent reply	other threads:[~2007-12-17 20:59 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2007-12-14 19:34 John Reiser
2007-12-14 20:13 ` Matt Mackall
2007-12-14 20:45   ` John Reiser
2007-12-14 23:23     ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-15  0:30       ` John Reiser
2007-12-15  4:32         ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-17 16:30           ` John Reiser
2007-12-17 17:36             ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-18  0:52               ` Andy Lutomirski
2007-12-18  3:05                 ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-18  3:13                   ` David Newall
2007-12-18  3:46                     ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-18  4:09                       ` David Newall
2007-12-18  4:23                         ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-19 22:43                           ` Bill Davidsen
2007-12-19 22:40                         ` Bill Davidsen
2007-12-20  4:18                       ` Andrew Lutomirski
2007-12-20 20:17                         ` Phillip Susi
2007-12-21 16:10                           ` Andrew Lutomirski
2007-12-22  1:14                             ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-26 18:30                             ` Phillip Susi
2007-12-20 20:36                         ` Theodore Tso
2007-12-27 10:44                           ` Pavel Machek
2007-12-18  5:12                 ` David Schwartz
2007-12-17 20:59             ` David Schwartz [this message]
2007-12-15  7:13         ` Herbert Xu
2007-12-15 16:30           ` Matt Mackall
2007-12-17 17:28           ` Signed divides vs shifts (Re: [Security] /dev/urandom uses uninit bytes, leaks user data) Linus Torvalds
2007-12-17 17:48             ` Al Viro
2007-12-17 17:55             ` Eric Dumazet
2007-12-17 18:05               ` Ray Lee
2007-12-17 18:10                 ` Eric Dumazet
2007-12-17 18:12                   ` Ray Lee
2007-12-17 18:23               ` Al Viro
2007-12-17 18:28               ` [Security] Signed divides vs shifts (Re: " Linus Torvalds
2007-12-17 19:08                 ` Al Viro
2007-12-15  7:20 /dev/urandom uses uninit bytes, leaks user data Matti Linnanvuori
2007-12-15  7:54 ` Valdis.Kletnieks
2007-12-15 22:44 linux

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