linux-kernel - Re: Replace /dev/random input mix polynomial with Brent's xorgen?

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Message-ID: <20131216042247.9826.qmail@science.horizon.com>
Date:	15 Dec 2013 23:22:47 -0500
From:	"George Spelvin" <linux@...izon.com>
To:	linux@...izon.com, tytso@....edu
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Replace /dev/random input mix polynomial with Brent's xorgen?

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 03:34:59AM -0500, George Spelvin wrote:
>> You're describing standard key-recovery attacks.  For /dev/random,
>> just knowing the *ciphertext* constitutes a successful attack.

> Um, no.  The *ciphertext* is the output.  The attacker can get all of
> the ciphertext he or she wants by reading /dev/random (although we'd
> probably do some folding as we currently do so the attacker won't even
> get all of the ciphertext).  What the attacker has to be able to do is
> given some of the ciphertext bits, be able to predict future
> ciphertext bits given some construction which uses AES as the basis.

The attack I was thinking of was figuring out (without breaking root and
using ptrace) what some *other* process on the same machine is reading
from /dev/random.

In other words, reading someone else's output.
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