linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 2/6] random: use xor for mixing

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Message-ID: <20071209133358.1d43e226@the-village.bc.nu>
Date:	Sun, 9 Dec 2007 13:33:58 +0000
From:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
Cc:	Matt Mackall <mpm@...enic.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/6] random: use xor for mixing

> So my personal take on it is that protecting against backtracking
> attacks is mainly useful in silencing academics who like to come up
> with, well, largely academic and theoretical scenario.  If it doesn't
> take much effort, sure, let's try to protect against it (and I think
> we're OK already).

That problem seems to arise here because we have an interface to add
'real' entropy to the pool but not one to add randomness to be used
solely for urandom. If we had both then the user could choose to add some
degree of randomness solely for urandom usage.

Alan
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