From: "David R. Conrad" <drc@russell.moore.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 95 04:57:51 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: New Netscape RNG
In-Reply-To: <199509250649.CAA27099@clark.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.950926072411.866D-100000@russell.moore.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Mon, 25 Sep 1995, Ray Cromwell wrote:

>   I just glanced at the new Netscape RNG source. I don't really see
> anything bad, but I haven't analyzed it. However, I'm curious
> as to why variables like the username or the language locality
> are used as sources of entropy. These seem to provide almost nil.

I, too, have only skimmed the code briefly.

[Lots of good stuff deleted]

>   Using those sources probably can't hurt, they just seemed
> like odd choices, "grasping for straws" so to speak.

What isn't clear to me is how much entropy they are assigning to these
sources.  Certainly if they manage to get at least 128 bits of entropy
then it doesn't matter how many non-random bits they mix into the hash.

I think they are simply throwing everything but the kitchen sink in,
and assuming that the overall result will be a sufficient number of
bits of entropy.  But it would be nice to at least see a few comments
on how many bits they expect each individual source to provide.

I also noticed that they use $HOME/.pgp/randseed.bin under unix, but
they don't bother with %PGPPATH%\RANDSEED.BIN on PCs.  I've sent Jeff
a private message about this.

David R. Conrad, conrad@detroit.freenet.org, http://www.grfn.org/~conrad
Hardware & Software Committee  --  Finger conrad@grfn.org for public key
Key fingerprint =  33 12 BC 77 48 81 99 A5  D8 9C 43 16 3C 37 0B 50
No, his mind is not for rent to any god or government.