begin quoting Todd Walton as of Mon, Mar 14, 2005 at 11:22:15PM -0800: > On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:11:17 -0800, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > You'd think they'd start shipping motherboards "randomness" chips by > > now. Didn't some of the old architectures have this? (Sample thermal > > noise or somesuch.) > > Trust. If a flaw were found with a common motherboard RNG, there'd be > a gaggle of sitting ducks, waiting to be exploited.
What, if thermal noise was suddenly predictable? And if the motherboard RNG were THAT flawed, you'd just change the driver to use the standard [P]RNG we have now. > I'd rather have an add-on, made by people who do such things, > answering to market forces who care. But if I'm going to go > "low-class", I'd rather have the inputs be more... random. Like > device drivers and such. Who else has just the combination of device > drivers and such that my computer has? Probably many people. Permutations of finite sets are less useful than you might think. But an add-on approach isn't bad. How about a "randomizer" thumb-drive? Plug the device in to a USB port, and you have your very own random source. -Stewart "Although, one-time keys might be a better use" Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
