Re: Intel 810 Random Number Generator

[Frank v Waveren]

On Mon, Jan 24, 2000 at 10:02:54AM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Frank v Waveren wrote:
> > Am I missing something here? I thought that you could mix all the non-random
> > numbers you want into the entropy pool (long live xor), and it will never make
> > the entropy worse? So I'd say mixing in the RNG won't do any harm, so why not?
> 
> Read the intro text in drivers/char/random.c...
> 
> If the RNG provides a lot more data than other entropy sources, it can
> throw things out of whack.

Hmm, interesting. I quote (in case someone else is interested)

 * outside observer to measure.  Randomness from these sources are
 * added to an "entropy pool", which is mixed using a CRC-like function.
 * This is not cryptographically strong, but it is adequate assuming
 * the randomness is not chosen maliciously, and it is fast enough that
 * the overhead of doing it on every interrupt is very reasonable.

Why not use XOR, which is 'pretty quick' too, and *really* doesn't care if
your mixing in your bookmarks file or radioactive decay data?

-- 

			Frank v Waveren
			[e-mail]
			ICQ# 10074100