linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] mtd: nand: add randomizer support

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Message-ID: <536284E1.50001@free-electrons.com>
Date:	Thu, 01 May 2014 19:31:13 +0200
From:	Boris BREZILLON <boris.brezillon@...e-electrons.com>
To:	Jason Gunthorpe <jgunthorpe@...idianresearch.com>
CC:	Brian Norris <computersforpeace@...il.com>,
	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>,
	devicetree@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org,
	Maxime Ripard <maxime.ripard@...e-electrons.com>,
	linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] mtd: nand: add randomizer support


On 01/05/2014 18:34, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> On Thu, May 01, 2014 at 03:09:49AM +0200, Boris BREZILLON wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> This series is a proposal to add support for randomizers (either software
>> or hardware) to NAND flash controller drivers.
> FWIW, I think the term for reversibly combining a PRBS with data is
> 'scrambling', it is often used in communication systems for similar
> reasons - probabilisticly increasing transition density.
>
> randomizing is something else entirely :)

I totally agree with you, this is not a randomizer but rather a scrambler.
The reason I chose the "randomizer" word is that all the documents I
read are talking about randomizers.
But, other than I don't have any concern about changing all references
to "randomizer" into "scrambler" ;-).

>
> BTW, there are security concerns here. The scrambler PRBS must not be
> predictable by the user, otherwise they can write data that undoes the
> scramble and defeat it, ie deliberately writing the last 2k of a 4k
> write block as all 0's after scrambling could cause the first 2k to be
> lost. That feels like something that could be scary ..

AFAICT, the scramblers/randomizers used in NAND applications are all
predictable, which means the scrambler state does not depend on the last
data being scrambled.
For example, the sunxi HW scrambler is using a Fibonacci LFSR [1].
Do you have any example of non predictable scrambler that are used to
scramble NAND data ?

Best Regards,

Boris

-- 
Boris Brezillon, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
http://free-electrons.com

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