Re: [PATCH v2 02/03]: hwrng: create filler thread

From: Torsten Duwe
Date: Thu Mar 27 2014 - 11:03:44 EST


On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 09:47:31PM -0700, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 03/26/2014 06:11 PM, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> > Also, in the /dev/random sense,
> > most hardware RNGs have no entropy at all, since they're likely to be
> > FIPS-approved DRBGs that don't have a real non-deterministic source.
>
> Such a device has no business being a Linux hwrng device. We already
> have a PRNG (DRBG) in the kernel, the *only* purpose for a hwrng device
> is to be an entropy source.

That's also my understanding. The shot noise from a Schottky-diode seems
to be quite popular, for example.

> TPMs, in particular, should almost certainly be massively derated based
> on what little we know about TPM.

Backdoors, anyone? :-)

Torsten

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