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From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
To: Akinobu Mita <akinobu.mita@gmail.com>
Cc: Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@gmail.com>,
	Adrian Hunter <adrian.hunter@intel.com>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org,
	akpm@linux-foundation.org, David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/9] random32: introduce random32_get_bytes() and prandom32_get_bytes()
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:39:37 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20121029203937.GC7098@thunk.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1351408746-8623-1-git-send-email-akinobu.mita@gmail.com>

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 04:18:58PM +0900, Akinobu Mita wrote:
>  /**
> + *	prandom32_get_bytes - get the requested number of pseudo-random bytes
> + *	@state: pointer to state structure holding seeded state.
> + *	@buf: where to copy the pseudo-random bytes to
> + *	@bytes: the requested number of bytes
> + *
> + *	This is used for pseudo-randomness with no outside seeding.
> + *	For more random results, use random32_get_bytes().
> + */
> +
> +/**
> + *	random32_get_bytes - get the requested number of pseudo-random bytes
> + *	@buf: where to copy the pseudo-random bytes to
> + *	@bytes: the requested number of bytes
> + */

This naming scheme is going to be very confusing.  If the function is
going to return a pseudo-random number, it *must* have a "prandom"
suffix.  Otherwise some kernel developer, somewhere, will get confused
between get_random_bytes() and random32_get_bytes(), and the result
may be a very embarassing security exposure.

How about prandom32_get_bytes_state() and prandom32_get_bytes() instead?

						- Ted

  parent reply	other threads:[~2012-10-29 20:59 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2012-10-28  7:18 [PATCH 1/9] random32: introduce random32_get_bytes() and prandom32_get_bytes() Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 3/9] mtd: mtd_nandecctest: use random32_get_bytes instead of get_random_bytes() Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 4/9] mtd: nandsim: use random32_get_bytes Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 5/9] ubifs: " Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 6/9] mtd: mtd_oobtest: convert to use prandom32_get_bytes() Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 7/9] mtd: mtd_pagetest: " Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 8/9] mtd: mtd_speedtest: use random32_get_bytes Akinobu Mita
2012-10-28  7:19 ` [PATCH 9/9] mtd: mtd_subpagetest: convert to use prandom32_get_bytes() Akinobu Mita
2012-10-29 20:39 ` Theodore Ts'o [this message]
2012-10-30 11:01   ` [PATCH 1/9] random32: introduce random32_get_bytes() and prandom32_get_bytes() Akinobu Mita
2012-10-30 11:12     ` Akinobu Mita
2012-10-31  3:29       ` Theodore Ts'o
2012-10-31 11:53         ` Akinobu Mita

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