Re: Entropy Pool Contents

Eran Tromer
2006-11-28T13:33:27Z

On 2006-11-27 23:52, Kyle Moffett wrote:
> Actually, our current /dev/random implementation is secure even if the
> cryptographic algorithms can be broken under traditional circumstances.

This is far from obvious, and in my opinion incorrect. David explained
this very well in his follow-up. Other pertinent references are
Gutterman Pinkas Reinman '06 [1], Barak and Halevi '05 [2, Section 5.1],
and the "/dev/random is probably not" thread [3].

The current algorithm is probably OK for casual users in normal
circumstances, but advertising it as absolutely secure is dangerously
misleading.

Eran

[1] http://www.gutterman.net/publications/GuttermanPinkasReinman2006.pdf
[2] http://eprint.iacr.org/2005/029
[3] http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg04215.html