Re: Why does reading from /dev/urandom deplete entropy so much?

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 10:16:05AM -0600, Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 09, 2007 at 01:42:00PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 05, 2007 at 03:26:47PM -0600, Matt Mackall wrote:
> > > The distinction between /dev/random and /dev/urandom boils down to one
> > > word: paranoia. If you are not paranoid enough to mistrust your
> > > network, then /dev/random IS NOT FOR YOU. Use /dev/urandom.
> > 
> > But currently, people who use /dev/urandom to obtain low-quality
> > entropy do a DoS for the paranoid people.
> 
> Not true, as I've already pointed out in this thread.

I must have missed this. Can you please explain again? For a layman it
looks like a paranoid application cannot read 500 Bytes from
/dev/random without blocking if some other application has previously
read 10 Kilobytes from /dev/urandom.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany  |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 3221 2323190
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [email protected]
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

[Index of Archives]     [Kernel Newbies]     [Netfilter]     [Bugtraq]     [Photo]     [Stuff]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Video 4 Linux]     [Linux for the blind]     [Linux Resources]
  Powered by Linux