[147109] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [Cryptography] Thoughts on hardware randomness sources
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Marcus D. Leech)
Sat Sep 14 10:19:46 2013
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 23:51:04 -0400
From: "Marcus D. Leech" <mleech@ripnet.com>
To: Jerry Leichter <leichter@lrw.com>
In-Reply-To: <BA9D641B-16E0-4555-8CF0-D9B9422811AB@lrw.com>
Cc: cryptography@metzdowd.com, Thor Lancelot Simon <tls@rek.tjls.com>
Errors-To: cryptography-bounces+crypto.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@metzdowd.com
On 09/13/2013 11:32 PM, Jerry Leichter wrote:
> On Sep 12, 2013, at 11:06 PM, Marcus D. Leech wrote:
>> There are a class of hyper-cheap USB audio dongles with very uncomplicated mixer models. A small flotilla of those might get you some fault-tolerance.
>> My main thought on such things relates to servers, where power consumption isn't really much of an issue....
> I'm not sure what servers you're talking about here.
>
> If by server you mean one of those things in a rack at Amazon or Google or Rackspace - power consumption, and its consequence, cooling - is *the* major issue these days. Also, the servers used in such data centers don't have multiple free USB inputs - they may not have any.
>
> If by server you mean some quite low-power box in someone's home ... power is again an issue. People want these things small, fan-free, and dead reliable. And they are increasingly aware of the electric bills always-on devices produce.
>
> About the only "server" for which power is not an issue is one of those extra-large desktops that small businesses use.
>
> -- Jerry
>
I was mostly contrasting with "mobile" systems, where power consumption
is at an absolute premium.
The USB sound systems I'm thinking of consume 350mW while operating, and
about 300uW when idle. A couple or three of those on even
a stripped-down server would contribute in only the smallest way to
extra power consumption. And the extra computational load? When these
servers things are running flat-out serving up secured connections?
I would guess the phrase "an inconsiderable trifle" would apply.
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