Re: [tlug] /dev/random is truly random?

["emiddleton@??" <emiddleton@??>]

Nguyen Vu Hung wrote:
> Linux's /dev/random is made from <kernel source>/drivers/char/random.c
> The seed used there is system timer, and it adds more "noise" from
> divice drives like keyboard "to have numbers which are not only
> random, but hard to * predict by an attacker." ( quote from the
> comment of the source code ) ( Yet, the seed is still timer! ).
>
> The term hard is confusing and doesn't have any metrics.
>
> My questions are:
>
> * How "hard" it is to predict the randomness of /dev/random ?
> * Is there any way to choose a seed other than the system timer ?
> * Any example run ( or papers ) out there on how to predict the
> randomnese of /dev/random ( or the randomese of ( computer generated )
> random number ?

Device Drivers->Character devices->Hardware Random Number Generator Core
support->

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generator

http://lldn.timesys.com/docs/about_entropy

Edward