Re: Intel 810 Random Number Generator

[Jeremy Fitzhardinge]

On 27-Jan-00 Pavel Machek wrote:
>> PGP did this by ignoring two strokes from one key in a row, so you had to
>> alternate between at least two keys.
> 
> Yes, but do you think me alternating between two keys at fastest speed
> possible is giving much random data? I just timed myself, and it gives
> something like 9chars/second. Thats well around jiffie
> resolution. [ok, on pentium+ rng uses rdtsc, but no such thing is done
> for other architectures]

PGP also just busywaited on the keyboard, incrementing a counter.  I think it
used about 3 bits per keystroke.  Its not considered to be a very high quality
source of randomness.

> Should we put "while sitting on linux machine do NOT press
> two-key-sequence at fastest possible rate, because it could drain all
> randomness out of entropy pool"?

Eh?  How can you drain entropy?

        J