linux-kernel - Re: Entropy Pool Contents

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Date:	Thu, 23 Nov 2006 19:48:55 -0500
From:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
To:	Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@...ux01.gwdg.de>
Cc:	Gunter Ohrner <G.Ohrner@...t.rwth-aachen.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Entropy Pool Contents

On Thu, Nov 23, 2006 at 01:10:08AM +0100, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
> Disk activities are "somewhat predictable", like network traffic, and 
> hence are not (or should not - have not checked it) contribute to the 
> pool. Note that urandom is the device which _always_ gives you data, and 
> when the pool is exhausted, returns pseudorandom data.

Plesae read the following article before making such assertions:

	D. Davis, R. Ihaka, P.R. Fenstermacher, "Cryptographic
	Randomness from Air Turbulence in Disk Drives", in Advances in
	Cryptology -- CRYPTO '94 Conference Proceedings, edited by Yvo
	G. Desmedt, pp.114--120. Lecture Notes in Computer Science
	#839. Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1994.
	http://world.std.com/~dtd/random/forward.ps

Regards,

						- Ted

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