Via puts RNGs on new processors

[Peter Gutmann]

Bill Frantz <frantz at pwpconsult.com> writes:
>At 9:39 AM -0700 4/8/03, Peter Gutmann wrote:
>>"Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com> writes:
>>
>>>The new Via Technologies x86 clone processors appear to have on-board
>>>cryptography support, including a hardware random number generator.
>>
>>It's not really "including a hardware RNG", that appears to be the sum total
>>of the crypto support, at least as far as anyone's been able to find out.  The
>>exact details of using the hardware RNG are only available under NDA from Via,
>>although anyone who can somehow get their hands on an appropriate Nehemiah-
>>core C3 to test with and the Cryptography Research tech report should be able
>>to put something together.
>
>I wonder if the instruction to read the RNG is privileged?  (Certain systems
>want to be able to control/intercept all inputs to a process so they can
>reproducibly rerun it later.  If the RNG is not privileged, then these
>techniques can't be used on this processor.)

XSTORE is unprivileged.

Peter.


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