From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <4ef85060c676ccc031ac92c171b73155@quintile.net>
From: "Steve Simon" <steve@quintile.net>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:25:02 +0100
To: 9fans@9fans.net
In-Reply-To: <20090410084102.GG4823@masters6.cs.jhu.edu>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] exportfs security question
Topicbox-Message-UUID: d9481fa0-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

> truerand() returns (at most) 32 bits of entropy, which gets pushed into
> srand() and then 32 bits of entropy are read back out... why not just use
> truerand() directly?

This bit I know, truerand() reads /dev/random (see cons(1)) and
can only generate "a few hundred bits per second".

rand is pretty good (I think) but it is predictable, by seeding it from
truerand() the predictability is avoided.

-Steve.