Re: randomdev entropy gathering is really weak

[Jeroen C. van Gelderen]

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> 
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Jeroen C. van Gelderen" writes
> :
> 
> >> Predicting the clock's offset from reality and the two way path to
> >> the server of choice is impossible, plus if people enable authentication
> >> later on the packets will be choke full of high-quality entropy.
> >
> >Please quantify 'impossible'.
> 
> People have tried for 30+ years to predict what a quartz xtal
> will do next.  Nobody expects any chance of success.  Add to this
> the need to predict the difference between one or more NTP servers
> and your local qartz xtal and I think we can safely say "impossible".

See my reply to David Schwartz. What kind of numbers are we
talking about?

> >I think we first need to figure out the security implications.
> 
> I think the security implications of having no entropy are much
> worse than having entropy which a truly superhuman *maybe* could
> guess *some* of the bits in, are far worse.

I agree, but to paraphrase: that's policy decision.
Just quantify it so that people can be their own judge.

Cheers,
Jeroen
-- 
Jeroen C. van Gelderen          o      _     _         _
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