----- Original Message ----- From: "John Denker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 3:06 AM
> Enzo Michelangeli wrote: [...] > > If the PRNG uses a > > really non-invertible algorithm (or one invertible only > > with intractable complexity), its output gives no insight > > whatsoever on its internal state. > > That is an invalid argument. The output is not the only source of > insight as to the internal state. As discussed at > http://www.av8n.com/turbid/paper/turbid.htm#sec-prng-attack > attacks against PRNGs can be classified as follows: > 1. Improper seeding, i.e. internal state never properly initialized. > 2. Leakage of the internal state over time. This rarely involves > direct cryptanalytic attack on the one-way function, leading to > leakage through the PRNG’s output channel. More commonly it > involves side-channels. > 3. Improper stretching of limited entropy supplies, i.e. improper > reseeding of the PRNG, and other re-use of things that ought not > be re-used. > 4. Bad side effects. > > There is a long record of successful attacks against PRNGs (op cit.). Yes, but those are implementation flaws. Also a true RNG could present weaknesses and be attacked (e.g., with strong EM fields overcoming the noise of its sound card; not to mention vulnerabilities induced by the quirks you discuss at http://www.av8n.com/turbid/paper/turbid.htm#sec-quirks). Anyway, I was not saying "RNG's are useless because PRNG's are more than enough": the scope of my question was much narrower, and concerned the concept of "entropy depletion". > I'm not saying that the problems cannot be overcome, > but the cost and bother of overcoming them may be such > that you decide it's easier (and better!) to implement > an industrial-strength high-entropy symbol generator. Sure, I don't disagree with that. > > As entropy is a measure of the information we don't have about the > > internal state of a system, > > That is the correct definition of entropy ... but it must be correctly > interpreted and correctly applied; see below. > > > it seems to me that in a good PRNGD its value > > cannot be reduced just by extracting output bits. If there > > is an entropy estimator based on the number of bits extracted, > > that estimator must be flawed. > > You're letting your intuition about "usable randomness" run roughshod > over the formal definition of entropy. Taking bits out of the PRNG > *does* reduce its entropy. By how much exactly? I'd say, _under the hypothesis that the one-way function can't be broken and other attacks fail_, exactly zero; in the real world, maybe a little more. But in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/random.c I see that the extract_entropy() function, directly called by the exported kernel interface get_random_bytes(), states: if (r->entropy_count / 8 >= nbytes) r->entropy_count -= nbytes*8; else r->entropy_count = 0; ...which appears to assume that the pool's entropy (the upper bound of which is POOLBITS, defined equal to 4096) drops by a figure equal to the number of bits that are extracted (nbytes*8). This would only make sense if those bits weren't passed through one-way hashing. Perhaps, a great deal of blockage problems when using /dev/random would go away with a more realistic estimate. Enzo --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]