Re: Intel announcements at RSA '99

[Alex Alten]

At 07:47 PM 1/21/99 -0500, David R. Conrad wrote:
>
>On Wed, 20 Jan 1999, Steve Bellovin wrote:
>
>> Intel has announced a number of interesting things at the RSA conference.
>> The most important, to me, is the inclusion of a hardware random number
>> generator (based on thermal noise) in the Pentium III instruction set.
>> They also announced hardware support for IPSEC.
>
>Doesn't seem to me that the new features are of much use to anyone.  As
>others have pointed out, it's quite difficult to assure oneself that the
>RNG is true and not a fair PRNG in disguise.  The code for, for instance,
>the linux /dev/random driver will probably change slightly:

What is needed is a certification of the RNG.  Like the NSA does for 
Fortezza cards (which contain an RNG).  Otherwise the only other way 
is to do it yourself using RNG analysis software like Diehard.

- Alex
--

Alex Alten

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