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Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 10:58:28 -0600 (CST)
From: Oliver Xymoron <oxymoron@waste.org>
To: Horst von Brand <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl>
cc: Andreas Dilger <adilger@turbolabs.com>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] random.c bugfix 
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On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, Horst von Brand wrote:

> Andreas Dilger <adilger@turbolabs.com> said:
>
> [...]
>
> > (*) I don't know enough about the hash functions to know how to add a
> >     few odd bytes into the store in a useful and safe way.  We don't
> >     really want to discard them either - think if a user-space random
> >     daemon on an otherwise entropy-free system only writes one byte at
> >     a time...
>
> I'm no expert either, but padding with anything (zeroes?) to get the right
> length should be safe, no?

No. A 4-byte accumulator is the right answer. We have to be careful here
though - the actual entropy might be in the partial words, we have to
account for it conservatively.

--
 "Love the dolphins," she advised him. "Write by W.A.S.T.E.."

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