Re: Why does reading from /dev/urandom deplete entropy so much?

[Russ Dill]

Marc Haber <mh+linux-kernel <at> zugschlus.de> writes:

> 
> While debugging Exim4's GnuTLS interface, I recently found out that
> reading from /dev/urandom depletes entropy as much as reading from
> /dev/random would. This has somehow surprised me since I have always
> believed that /dev/urandom has lower quality entropy than /dev/random,
> but lots of it.
> 
> This also means that I can "sabotage" applications reading from
> /dev/random just by continuously reading from /dev/urandom, even not
> meaning to do any harm.

An application either needs to be cryptographically secure, or it doesn't. If it
doesn't, then just use /dev/urandom to seed a PRNG.



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