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

Jamie Lokier
2003-08-16T00:58:33Z

Andrew Morton wrote:
> Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com> wrote:
> > I'm pretty sure there was never a time when entropy
> > accounting wasn't racy let alone wrong, SMP or no (fixed in -mm, thank
> > you).
>
> Well is has been argued that the lack of locking in the random driver is a
> "feature", adding a little more unpredictability.

Dodgy. Does lack of locking mean users can trick /dev/random into
thinking it has more entropy than it does? Or let them detect the
time when /dev/random gains entropy, without reading it?

> Now I don't know if that makes sense or not, but the locking certainly has
> a cost. If it doesn't actually fix anything then that cost becomes a
> waste.

Per-cpu random pools, perhaps :)

-- Jamie