[Cryptography] OpenSSL CSPRNG work

[Ron Garret]

On Jun 27, 2017, at 8:40 PM, Ray Dillinger <bear at sonic.net> wrote:

>> Thomas may know what he’s talking about, but his advice is based on some tacit assumptions which may not always be true, and which a reasonable person might choose not to accept.
> 
> There is no environment in current use where using /dev/urandom more
> than a minute after bootup will inconvenience any other process in the
> slightest.

So?  What does that have anything to do with what I said?

> Refusing to use it in order to avoid a hypothetical problem
> that probably won't even occur on those systems is like a garage
> refusing to use an air wrench to put on wheels because using one
> carelessly might break the wooden spokes of a model-T. Well, that is,
> one of the pre-1934 model-T's that had wooden spokes instead of metal.

Security is all about avoiding hypothetical problems that might never occur.  Having an attacker insert a back door into a /dev/urandom driver is not an unreasonable threat model for some people.

rg

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