Re: [RFC] FW: proposal for systems that do not require security

[sama@aglorioso.com]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2001 at 02:35:52PM +0200, Heusden, Folkert van wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have an idea: I have a couple of linux-systems running in a intranet which
> is not connected to do outside world in any way. Since they're only used for
> calculations for which there is no harm if anyone would tamper with them,
> security is not neccessary. The only thing important, is performance. Huge
> amounts of data must be transferred inbetween these boxes.
> So, I was wondering: isn't it a nice idea to have a switch in the
> configuration menu to disable entropy-gathering in the interrupt-routines,
> have some simplistic routine (like x'=(x * m + a) % p) which returns a non-
> cryptographic value, and something similar symplistic for the network-
> traffic routines?

Have you  already  tried  to  measure  how  much  impact has   entropy
gathering on the overall performances?  Something like the Linux Trace
Toolkit (http://www.opersys.com/LTT/) could be of help here.

I doubt  such optimization  is useful to  the mainstream  kernel tree,
but it would be interesting to compare numbers nonetheless.

Ciao,

Andrea Glorioso