Followup to: <1E7F3E867C2DD3119D7F00A0C9D85863C15410@excnlle001.wang.nl>
By author: "van Heusden, Folkert" <Folkertvan.Heusden@getronics.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I think you can "remove" (well, not literally)
> some of the not-so-random data in the inputs
> for the random generator (like the 60Hz of the
> current, processor harmonics, etc.) by first
> sending the random-data trough a compressor.
> bzip2 or gzip or whatsoever. By compressing
> data, you'll remove redundancy from data which
> should remove repeating events like the 60hz
> stuff. See also the thread that spawned on this
> mailinglist on that message I wrote about the
> randomness of the kernel :-)
>
This is pretty much impossible to analyze for cryptographic soundness,
however. Better is just to underestimate the enthropy contribution,
and use the existing mixing infrastructure.
(Yet another reason to use the RNG as input to /dev/random rather than
anything else.)
-hpa
-- <hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Jan 31 2000 - 21:00:19 EST