[openssl-dev] Work on a new RNG for OpenSSL

Blumenthal, Uri - 0553 - MITLL uri at ll.mit.edu
Mon Aug 21 16:20:50 UTC 2017


>    I at least have a plan to add additional data, but probably not in
>    the current idea was probably not the way you would like to see it.

:-)  

>    My idea was to query at least various sources that we don't
>    attribute any entropy to, like getpid(), gettimeofday(),
>    clock_gettime(), the TSC, ...

>From my point of view – adding these doesn’t add a whole lot, but it doesn’t hurt. IMHO – add away. ;-)

>    It might also use things like RDRAND / RDSEED which we don't trust.

Some don’t trust these, some think that they would add a good amount of entropy. I for one would certainly like to see the output of these mixed in. >From cryptography point of view, it cannot hurt, but may help a lot. Consider it as a lottery ticket you don’t have to pay for. ;-)
    
>    So I guess you want an interface that can both add things to the
>    "entropy" pool, and to the "additional data" pool?

That is correct. Especially because some of us have “real” nice/fancy hardware RNG (TRNG) available, and some like to mix in the output from RNGs on hardware tokens - maybe not as impressive as a “real” fancy TRNG, but as they say, every bit helps – in this case literally.

> It shouldn't be that hard, I'll try to come up with some proposal soon.
    
Thank you!!
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