[145738] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: questions about RNGs and FIPS 140
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven Bellovin)
Thu Aug 26 11:59:22 2010
From: Steven Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
In-Reply-To: <20100825203716.GA1717@subspacefield.org>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:46:00 -0400
Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com
To: travis+ml-cryptography@subspacefield.org
On Aug 25, 2010, at 4:37 16PM, travis+ml-cryptography@subspacefield.org =
wrote:
>=20
> 3) Is determinism a good idea?
> See Debian OpenSSL fiasco. I have heard Nevada gaming commission
> regulations require non-determinism for obvious reasons.
It's worth noting that the issue of determinism vs. non-determinism is =
by no means clearcut. You yourself state that FIPS 140-2 requires =
deterministic PRNGs; I think one can rest assured that the NSA had a lot =
of input into that spec. The Clipper chip programming facility used a =
PRNG to set the unit key -- and for good reasons, not bad ones.
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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