[Cryptography] High volume thermal entropy from an iPhone

[Richard Outerbridge]

On 2017-12-13 (347), at 23:58:05, Matt Palmer <matt at hezmatt.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 01:54:08PM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017, Alexandre Anzala-Yamajako wrote:
>>> The example is old but I could give you the output of an AES in counter
>>> mode with a null key and a null iv and no standard statistical test woud
>>> ever show you any defects while you have absolutely no entropy.
>> 
>> I'm still learning here, but is that a weakness of crypto in general i.e.
>> always avoid null keys and IVs, or AES in particular?
> 
> I think if you replace "null" with "known" it's still the same issue: the
> bitstream is predictable, which is a Bad Thing, even though it *looks*,
> from the outside, like a stream of high quality random bits.

Aye, boyz, there’s the rub: ye canna’ tell.
__outer