Re: [RFC][PATCH] Make cryptoapi non-optional?

David Wagner
2003-08-11T19:23:50Z

Jamie Lokier wrote:
>It may be that an attacker knows about a systemic problem with our
>machine that we don't know about. For example the attacker might know
>our pool state well enough shortly after boot time, to have a chance
>at matching a dictionary of 2^32 hashes. The attacker might have had
>a chance to read our disk, which reseeding the pool at boot time does
>not protect against.
>
>With the right algorithm, we can protect against weaknesses of this kind.

How? No matter what we do, the outputs are going to be a deterministic
function of the state of the pool. If the attacker can guess the entire
state of our pool (or narrow it down to 2^32 possibilities), we're screwed,
no matter what. Right?

I must be misunderstanding your point. What am I missing?