In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Fri, 21 Nov 2003 17:07:25 -0500, Geoff Thorpe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
geoff> > For 0.9.7-stable, I suggest the following hack: geoff> > geoff> > have hwcrhk_rand_bytes and hwcrhk_rand_status check a static variable geoff> > (initilized to 0), and if it's 0, they will grab a bunch of random geoff> > bytes from the box and feed them into the OpenSSL pool with geoff> > RAND_seed(), and then call RAND_SSLeay()->bytes() and so on, geoff> > respectively. This requires, again, that all other function pointers geoff> > in hwcrhk_rand have the same values as in the structure returned by geoff> > RAND_SSLeay(). geoff> geoff> I would at least discuss this with someone from ncipher.com - geoff> considering that 0.9.7 is supposed to be stable, people might geoff> get a bit stroppy if something as security-sensitive as PRNG geoff> handling changed on them without warning. In particular, the EU geoff> laws mandating hardware crypto in certain situations are geoff> presumably for reasons of (i) key-management and (ii) PRNG. So geoff> if we make a change that transparently causes the hardware to geoff> only be used for initial seeding instead of ongoing PRNG geoff> functions, are we inadvertently creating non-compliance? Yeah I geoff> agree, this would be a crock if it were true - but not geoff> everything works on technical merit in this world ... :-) geoff> (Check the world's main desktop O/S, for example.) That's a point of course. So we get to the old argument of speed/comfort/whatever vs. security... An option that leaves the decision right back into the hands of the user would be to have an extra ENGINE_set_defaults() flag called ENGINE_METHOD_RAND_SEED, and when that is used, the RAND_METHOD given by the engine is handled in a specialised way. Food for thought. ----- Please consider sponsoring my work on free software. See http://www.free.lp.se/sponsoring.html for details. You don't have to be rich, a $10 donation is appreciated! -- Richard Levitte \ Tunnlandsvägen 3 \ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] \ S-168 36 BROMMA \ T: +46-8-26 52 47 \ SWEDEN \ or +46-708-26 53 44 Procurator Odiosus Ex Infernis -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Member of the OpenSSL development team: http://www.openssl.org/ Unsolicited commercial email is subject to an archival fee of $400. See <http://www.stacken.kth.se/~levitte/mail/> for more info. ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org Development Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
