Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262541AbVDPBVF (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:21:05 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262545AbVDPBVF (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:21:05 -0400 Received: from abraham.CS.Berkeley.EDU ([128.32.37.170]:61198 "EHLO abraham.cs.berkeley.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262541AbVDPBVB (ORCPT ); Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:21:01 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Path: not-for-mail From: daw@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) Newsgroups: isaac.lists.linux-kernel Subject: Re: Fortuna Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 01:19:03 +0000 (UTC) Organization: University of California, Berkeley Distribution: isaac Message-ID: References: <20050414141538.3651.qmail@science.horizon.com> <20050414145204.GI12263@certainkey.com> Reply-To: daw-usenet@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) NNTP-Posting-Host: taverner.cs.berkeley.edu X-Trace: abraham.cs.berkeley.edu 1113614343 4805 128.32.168.222 (16 Apr 2005 01:19:03 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@abraham.cs.berkeley.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 01:19:03 +0000 (UTC) X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) Originator: daw@taverner.cs.berkeley.edu (David Wagner) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1286 Lines: 21 Jean-Luc Cooke wrote: >Info-theoretic randomness is a strong desire of some/many users, [..] I don't know. Most of the time that I've seen users say they want information-theoretic randomness, I've gotten the impression that those users didn't really understand what information-theoretic randomness means, and their applications usually didn't need information-theoretic randomness in the first place. As for those who reject computational security because of its unproven nature, they should perhaps be warned that any conjectured information-theoretic security of /dev/random is also unproven. Personally, I feel the issue of information-theoretic security is a distraction. Given the widespread confusion about what information-theoretic security means, I certainly sympathize with why Jean-Luc Cooke left in the existing entropy estimation technique as a way of side-stepping the whole argument. Anyway, the bottom line is I don't consider "information-theoretic arguments" as a very convincing reason to reject Cooke's proposal. - 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/