chip-level randomness?

[Carl Ellison]

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At 09:51 AM 9/14/2001 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
>I'm rooting around for stuff on hardware random number generation.
>
>More specificially, I'm looking to see if anyone has done any
>entropy-collection at the chip-architecture level as part of the
>logic of a chip.
>
>I saw somewhere the intel had done it as part of the Pentium, for
>instance, but I can't find out whether it's an actual entropy
>collector, or just a PRNG.

http://developer.intel.com/design/security/rng/rngfaq.htm

The Intel generator is not built into the Pentium but rather into the
Intel chipset (specifically, a part called the Firmware Hub).  It is
available in the 800-series chipsets/motherboards.  Roughly, you can
find these on Intel Pentium III and P-4 motherboards.  To find
whether a particular system has the RNG, you can try loading the
Intel RNG driver (under Windows) and you'll be told whether the
system has the hardware.

See http://developer.intel.com/design/security/rng/rngres.htm for the
driver ("Security Driver")

BTW, that RNG is really hot -- very high speed, very high entropy. 
The post-processing in hardware is relatively simple.  The driver
post-processes by running batches through a hash.

I'm told that the LINUX 2.4 kernel comes with the RNG driver
built-in, but I haven't tried that.

 - Carl

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+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Carl M. Ellison         cme at acm.org     http://world.std.com/~cme |
|    PGP: 08FF BA05 599B 49D2  23C6 6FFD 36BA D342                 |
+--Officer, officer, arrest that man. He's whistling a dirty song.-+



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