Re:Entropy and the NetBSD Kernel
by loeg on Sunday May 17, 2020 @02:25PM
(#23214026)
If you own an Intel CPU made in the last decade? 15 years? you've already got one. PowerPC's got the DARN instruction as well.
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Re:Entropy and the NetBSD Kernel
by 29athrowaway on Sunday May 17, 2020 @03:41PM
(#23214715)
What Theodore Ts'o said about it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180611180213/https://plus.goog...
(This Theodore Ts'o: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Ts%27o)
Re:Entropy and the NetBSD Kernel
by a1369209993 on Sunday May 17, 2020 @05:44PM
(#23215781)
You obviously should never use a hardware module as your only source of entropy. What loeg is pointing out is that if you need a hardware RNG (in addition to your seedfile, RTC, environmental noise, etc), a modern CPU fills that particular role in the SRNG system without any additional hardware.
I have a great deal of respect for Ted Ts'o but I don't think this concern has much merit. If your CPU vendor is an attacker, there are much more trivial ways for the manufacturer to break your security in hard to detect ways.