Re: [PATCH 1/1] virtio: rng: add derating factor for use by hwrng core

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 08/11/2014 10:27 PM, Amit Shah wrote:
> On (Mon) 11 Aug 2014 [15:11:03], H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>> On 08/11/2014 11:49 AM, Amit Shah wrote:
>>> The khwrngd thread is started when a hwrng device of sufficient
>>> quality is registered.  The virtio-rng device is backed by the
>>> hypervisor, and we trust the hypervisor to provide real entropy.  A
>>> malicious hypervisor is a scenario that's ruled out, so we are certain
>>> the quality of randomness we receive is perfectly trustworthy.  Hence,
>>> we use 100% for the factor, indicating maximum confidence in the source.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Amit Shah <amit.shah@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> It isn't "ruled out", it is just irrelevant: if the hypervisor is
>> malicious, the quality of your random number source is the least of your
>> problems.
> 
> Yea; I meant ruled out in that sense.  Should the commit msg be more
> verbose?
> 

Yes, as it is written it is misleading.

	-hpa


--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/