From: "Deranged Mutant" <WlkngOwl@unix.asb.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 02:19:42 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: RNG_DEVICE Environment Variable?
Message-ID: <199604061226.HAA12458@unix.asb.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Considering a couple of RNG hardware manufacturers use different 
names for device interfaces, perhaps it would be 'convenient' to 
have apps look for the environment variable RNG_DEVICE which gives 
the name of whatever device is used (rnadom$, random, rand, even 
lpt2...) or even a special file that is mixed periodically by a cron 
job (noiz.c?).

The assumption is that reads from that device would return "truly 
random" bytes (not from a pseudo-RNG), either from specialized 
hardware or a system-noise sampler such as noise.sys (DOS) or 
random.c (Linux, FreeBSD).

How software would handle not getting enough bytes is another matter, 
perhaps left configurable to the app.

Rob. 

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