[39430] in bugtraq
Re: /dev/random is probably not
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Glynn Clements)
Tue Jul 5 18:49:40 2005
From: Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>
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Message-ID: <17098.41040.551604.611443@gargle.gargle.HOWL>
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 15:59:28 +0100
To: "Zow" Terry Brugger <zow@llnl.gov>
Cc: Chiaki <ishikawa@yk.rim.or.jp>, bugtraq@securityfocus.com,
"Charles M. Hannum" <mycroft@netbsd.org>
In-Reply-To: <auto-000024493417@mailbe-2.llnl.gov>
"Zow" Terry Brugger wrote:
> It's been a while since I looked at the /dev/random design on Linux
> (probably the early 2.4 days), however one thing that was quite
> clear was that they did not use any network I/O as entropy sources
> because an attacker, particularly one that already had control of
> other machines on the same LAN segment, could have a high degree of
> control over that source.
They don't need to have any control; simply being able to observe
network traffic means that it is no longer random (in the sense of
"unpredictable", which is what counts from a security perspective).
--
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>
