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From: daw@mozart.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner)
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes
Date: 22 Aug 2002 03:25:26 GMT	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ak1lj6$drl$3@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: Pine.LNX.4.44.0208171923330.1310-100000@home.transmeta.com

Linus Torvalds  wrote:
>On the other hand, if you are _too_ anal you won't consider _anything_ 
>"truly random", and /dev/random becomes practically useless on things that 
>don't have special randomness hardware.

Well, /dev/random never was the right interface for most applications, and
this is arguably the real source of the problem.  For most applications,
what you want is something like /dev/urandom (possibly a version that
doesn't deplete all the true randomness available for /dev/random).  Very
few applications need true randomness; for most, cryptographic-quality
pseudorandomness should suffice.

1 bit of true randomness a minute should be more than sufficient for most
real applications.  (That means you can catastrophically reseed with 128
bits once every two hours, which sounds good to me.)

  parent reply	other threads:[~2002-08-22  3:37 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 86+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2002-08-18  2:15 [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  2:23 ` [PATCH] (1/4) " Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  2:26   ` [PATCH] (2/4) Update input drivers Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  2:29     ` [PATCH] (3/4) SA_RANDOM user fixup Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  2:32       ` [PATCH] (4/4) entropy batching update Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  2:30 ` [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  2:59   ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  3:08     ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  3:25       ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  4:42         ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  4:53           ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  5:05             ` Dmitri
2002-08-18  6:18               ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-22  3:33             ` David Wagner
2002-08-18 10:30         ` Alan Cox
2002-08-18 15:08           ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18 17:31           ` Jonathan Lundell
2002-08-22  3:27         ` David Wagner
2002-08-18  4:30       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-21  8:44       ` Rogier Wolff
2002-08-21 12:47         ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  5:28     ` Andreas Dilger
2002-08-18  5:53       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-22  3:25   ` David Wagner [this message]
2002-08-18  3:05 ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  3:51   ` Robert Love
2002-08-18  4:01     ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  5:38       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-19  4:21         ` Theodore Ts'o
2002-08-19 10:15           ` Marco Colombo
2002-08-19 10:25             ` Oliver Neukum
2002-08-19 11:03               ` Marco Colombo
2002-08-19 14:22                 ` Oliver Neukum
2002-08-19 15:21                   ` Marco Colombo
2002-08-19 16:29                     ` Oliver Neukum
2002-08-19 12:39           ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  6:31       ` Robert Love
2002-08-18  6:48         ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  4:06     ` dean gaudet
2002-08-18  4:44       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  7:31       ` Bernd Eckenfels
2002-08-18  9:48         ` Ralf Baechle
2002-08-20 12:51           ` Bernd Eckenfels
2002-08-18 16:58         ` Robert Love
2002-08-18 10:25       ` Alan Cox
2002-08-19 10:47         ` Marco Colombo
2002-08-19 12:29           ` Alan Cox
2002-08-19 12:56             ` Marco Colombo
2002-09-08  3:43             ` D. Hugh Redelmeier
2002-09-08 18:03               ` David Wagner
2002-09-09 16:53                 ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-09-09 16:58                   ` David Wagner
2002-09-09 19:47                     ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-09-09 23:22                       ` David Wagner
2002-09-16 22:51                       ` dean gaudet
2002-09-17  1:18                         ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-09-09 18:54                   ` Kent Borg
2002-09-09 19:57                     ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-09-09 20:11                       ` Kent Borg
2002-08-18  4:57     ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  4:28   ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18  4:51     ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18  5:24       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18 16:59         ` Linus Torvalds
2001-11-02 10:34           ` Pavel Machek
2002-08-23 20:16             ` Linus Torvalds
2002-08-18 17:03           ` Robert Love
2002-08-18 17:31           ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18 16:54     ` Robert Love
2002-08-18 17:18       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-18 17:20         ` Robert Love
2002-08-19  5:43 ` Theodore Ts'o
2001-11-02 10:05   ` Pavel Machek
2002-08-19  6:06   ` *Challenge* Finding a solution (When kernel boots it does not display any system info) louie miranda
2002-08-19  7:30     ` Gilad Ben-Yossef
2002-08-19  7:30     ` Ryan Cumming
2002-08-20  0:55       ` louie miranda
2002-08-19 13:52   ` [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-20  8:59     ` Tommi Kyntola
2002-08-20 13:21       ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-08-20 16:19         ` Tommi Kyntola
2002-08-20 17:22           ` Oliver Xymoron
2002-09-08  3:51             ` D. Hugh Redelmeier
2002-09-08  4:31               ` Oliver Xymoron
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2002-08-18  4:57 David Brownell
2002-08-18  6:02 ` Oliver Xymoron

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