[11194] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: building a true RNG (was: Quantum Computing ...)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Tue Jul 23 14:08:32 2002
To: "John S. Denker" <jsd@monmouth.com>
Cc: David Honig <dahonig@cox.net>, amir@herzberg.name,
"'Hannes R. Boehm'" <hannes@boehm.org>,
"'Ian Hill'" <Ian@Protonic.com>, cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: Derek Atkins <derek@ihtfp.com>
Date: 23 Jul 2002 09:56:01 -0400
In-Reply-To: <3D3CA171.8DE6A2D@monmouth.com>
"John S. Denker" <jsd@monmouth.com> writes:
> > Source --> Digitizer --> Simple hash --> Whitener (e.g., DES)
>
> OK, we have DES as an example of a whitener.
> -- Can somebody give me an example of a "simple hash"
> that performs "irreversible compression" of the required
> kind?
I can give you a number of examples: MD5, SHA-1, ....
> -- Isn't the anti-collision property required of even
> the simplest hash? Isn't that tantamount to a very
> strong "mixing" property? If there's strong mixing in
> the simple hash function, why do we need more mixing
> in the later "whitening" step?
More mixing is never bad in an RNG.. See RFC1750.
> -- What is meant by "cryptologic strength"? Strength
> against what kind of attack? If this means in particular
> the one-way property, why do I need it? I can understand
> why a !!pseudo!! random symbol generator needs the one-way
> property, to protect its internal state, but since my
> generator has no secret state to protect, why do I need
> any cryptologic properties other than mixing?
I think they probably meant cryptographic strength, but I
don't know what was going through their minds. What
do people mean by "authentification"? That's not even
a real world but I see it all the time. To me, I think
people just don't know the right term to use so they
just put down something that sounds right to them, regardless
of its correctness.
-derek
--
Derek Atkins
Computer and Internet Security Consultant
derek@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com
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