Bugtraq mailing list archives
Re: /dev/random is probably not
From: "Robert Foxworth" <rfoxwor1 () tampabay rr com>
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 22:59:09 -0400
Charles M. Hannum wrote:Most implementations of /dev/random (or so-called "entropy gathering
daemons")
rely on disk I/O timings as a primary source of randomness. This is
based on
a CRYPTO '94 paper[1] that analyzed randomness from air turbulence
inside the
drive case.
At the last place at which I worked, a few years ago, a "random number" was generated, and used in a FIPS 140-1 compliant encryption device, by capturing 128 ethernet frames in sequence from the local in-house network, gathering the LSB from the arrival time of each frame, and using those values to generate an encryption key. This was part of the "activation sequence" which had to be done, once, on each such device. Any studies out there on the randomness of such a number? At first glance a non-deterministic network would seem to be able to generate a useful number for the key. - Bob Foxworth, GSEC, CISSP
Current thread:
- Re: /dev/random is probably not, (continued)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Stefan Bethke (Jul 08)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Francesco Messineo (Jul 12)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Zow (Jul 04)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Anton Ivanov (Jul 05)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not devnull (Jul 06)
- RE: /dev/random is probably not David Schwartz (Jul 05)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Glynn Clements (Jul 05)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not ChayoteMu (Jul 06)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Jack Lloyd (Jul 05)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Alexey Toptygin (Jul 06)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Chris Kuethe (Jul 06)
- Re: /dev/random is probably not Thomas (Jul 06)
- RE: /dev/random is probably not David Schwartz (Jul 08)