Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269344AbUIYOv4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:51:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269345AbUIYOv4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:51:56 -0400 Received: from 104.engsoc.carleton.ca ([134.117.69.104]:48573 "EHLO certainkey.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269344AbUIYOvx (ORCPT ); Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:51:53 -0400 Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 10:51:08 -0400 From: Jean-Luc Cooke To: "Theodore Ts'o" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL/PATCH] Fortuna PRNG in /dev/random Message-ID: <20040925145108.GV28317@certainkey.com> References: <20040923234340.GF28317@certainkey.com> <20040924043851.GA3611@thunk.org> <20040924125457.GO28317@certainkey.com> <20040924174301.GB20320@thunk.org> <20040924175929.GU28317@certainkey.com> <20040924213452.GA22399@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040924213452.GA22399@thunk.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040722i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1392 Lines: 30 On Fri, Sep 24, 2004 at 05:34:52PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote: > > Woh there. Didn't you just say "see, these hashes are weakened. That's > > bad". Now I just demonstrated the same thing with your SHA1 implementation > > and you throw that "red-herring" phrase out again? > > No, what I'm saying is that crypto primitives can get weakened; this > is a fact of life. SHA-0, MD4, MD5, etc. are now useless as general > purpose cryptographic hashes. Fortuna makes the assumptions that > crypto primitives will never break, as it relies on them so heavily. > I have a problem with this, since I remember ten years ago when people > were as confident in MD5 as you appear to be in SHA-256 today. http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/207.pdf SHA-256 showing indications of weakness. Fortuna's algorithms can be replaced at compile-time. I may even consider doing them at run-time. > Crypto academics are fond of talking about how you can "prove" that > Fortuna is secure. But that proof handwaves around the fact that we > have no capability of proving whether SHA-1, or SHA-256, is truly > secure. Our issues are that we are *both* handwaving. JLC - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/