[4564] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: New Intel Celeron chip set has random number generator
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Steven M. Bellovin)
Thu Apr 29 11:33:51 1999
To: Jim Thompson <jim@wayport.net>
Cc: mctylr@privacy.nb.ca, Rob_Lemos@zd.com, cryptography@c2.net,
linux-ipsec@clinet.fi
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 21:00:52 -0400
From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>
In message <199904272338.SAA06437@wwhq.aus.wayport.net>, Jim Thompson writes:
>
>Here in my hands, I have an "Atom-Age" HW RNG device.
>
Sounds interesting -- do you have a URL or other contact info?
But -- and it's a big "but" -- what assurance mechanisms does their device provide? The Intel folks say that being sure that the random numbers
are really random was the hard part. Other RNGs I'm familiar with do
statistical tests at power-up, and use post-whitening besides. Does this
device do that? The worst combination, of course, is something that does
the latter without the former.
