[696] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Random numbers from the '60's...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Shostack)
Mon May 5 23:33:22 1997
From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
In-Reply-To: <v03102807af9443e0de5f@[205.162.51.35]> from Jim McCoy at "May 5, 97 06:14:50 pm"
To: mccoy@communities.com (Jim McCoy)
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 22:34:39 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Jim McCoy wrote:
| If the preamp picks up noise which is internally generated by the computer
| then the situation will end up being no worse than without the soundcard
| input and if the system does manage to pick up some external entropy, so
| much the better. How can this situation be any worse than the current
| lack of randomness on PCs?
This situation can lead to mis-estimations of the amount of
entropy available, which leads to bad key selection, etc.
The folks who participate here probably won't make that
mistake, but we can't extrapolate from security experts to the general
population and expect the same level of caution that Peter or Marc
would bring to massaging the numbers.
Adam
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
