Re: [PATCH 00/11] random: code cleanups

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 11/12/2013 08:37 PM, Greg Price wrote:
> 
> I'm thinking only of boot-time blocking.  The idea is that once
> /dev/urandom is seeded with, say, 128 bits of min-entropy in the
> absolute, information-theoretic sense, it can produce an infinite
> supply (or something like 2^128 bits, which amounts to the same thing)
> of bits that can't be distinguished from random, short of breaking or
> brute-forcing the crypto.  So once it's seeded, it's good forever.
> 

And, pray tell, how will you know that you have done that?

Even the best entropy estimation algorithms are nothing but estimations,
and min-entropy is the hardest form of entropy to estimate.

	-hpa

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