Re: RFC/PATCH: Random pid generation

From: Mike Porter (mike@UDel.Edu)
Date: Thu Jan 13 2000 - 15:36:29 EST


> WRT the security issues; predictable pids have always assisted the cause
> of the cracker. Any extra difficulty we can generate is always
> useful. Obviously it's only worth considering for 32bit pids not 16bit.
>
> Cheers
> Chris

If you are going to use random pids to help prevent crackers from
guessing the next pid, then the method used to generate the random
numbers needs to be cryptographically secure. From what I
understand, this is pretty non-trivial (see: Yarrow at
http://www.counterpane.com/).

Mike

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