[Cryptography] RNG design principles

[Ralf Senderek]

On Sat, 26 Nov 2016, John Denker wrote:

> This is a multi-piece puzzle.  Having one critical piece in place
> increases the motivation to come up with the remaining pieces.

Indeed!

When my grub starts the boot process:
       Nov 27 11:28:03 ext.senderek.ie kernel: Linux version 4.8.8-300.fc25.x86_64

it takes a whooping six seconds until
       Nov 27 11:28:09 lap.senderek.ie kernel: random: crng init done

the kernel completes the initialisation of the random number engine.
Everything done before that point whould have to deal with a lack
of entropy. So it's important to shift this event down as much as
possible.

       --ralf