From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailserv2.iuinc.com (IDENT:qmailr@mailserv2.iuinc.com [206.245.164.55]) by puffin.external.hp.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id EAA06079 for ; Mon, 29 May 2000 04:25:06 -0600 Message-ID: <39324625.977B5A74@storm.ca> Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 06:27:49 -0400 From: Sandy Harris MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Peter A. Peterson II" CC: parisc-linux@thepuffingroup.com Subject: Re: [parisc-linux] HP-UX random number generator? References: <20000529024931.B11779@flynn.zork.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii List-ID: "Peter A. Peterson II" wrote: > > I'm awaiting the day when I can fool around with Linux on my E-45, but > in the meantime, I'm trying to use it's tape drive to back up my > traditional Linux boxen via piping a tarball through ssh. However, ssh > needs a random generator (like /dev/urandom/) and I don't know what an > HP-UX equivalent might be, or how to go about installing one. > Since you want to use it for crypto, this is a fairly difficult problem. The numbers don't just need to have a nice distribution; they have to be highly unpredictable, even to the cleverest, most persistent and best-equipped opponent you might encounter. The standard reference is RFC 1750. A page with quite a lot of discussion of Linux /dev/random is at: http://www.openpgp.net/random/index.html There's a bunch more in Linux kernel mailing list archives. Bruce Schneier and a few others have done quite a bit of research on weaknesses of random number generators and designed a generator called Yarrow. Source (Windows only last I looked) is freely available from counterpane.com.