Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 18 Aug 2002 00:53:48 -0500 | From | Oliver Xymoron <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] (0/4) Entropy accounting fixes |
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On Sat, Aug 17, 2002 at 11:28:08PM -0600, Andreas Dilger wrote: > > Even so, I would agree with Linus in the thought that being "too > paranoid" makes it basically useless. If you have people sniffing > your network right next to the WAN side of your IPSec firewall with > GHz network analyzers and crafting packets to corrupt your entropy > pool, then chances are they could just as easily sniff the LAN side > of your network and get the unencrypted data directly. The same > holds true for keystroke logging (or spy camera) to capture your pass > phrase instead of trying an incredibly difficult strategy to "influence" > the generation of this huge key in advance.
Actually, my attack model here assumes a hostile LAN. GHz WAN is fairly uncommon.
This design comes from an entropy pool I made from scratch for another system and fixed what I thought the deficits are in the Linux model. Current Linux a) overestimates entropy b) can't incorporate untrusted data c) doesn't sample from the network at all.
I think if I'd broken this up this way:
piece 1a: mix in untrusted data without accounting it piece 1b: start sampling the network as untrusted data piece 2a: clean up bogosity in entropy accounting
..no one would have objected.
> In the end, if you make it so hard to extract your secrets in a stealthy > manner, they will just start with a few big guys and a rubber hose...
Oddly enough, I came home today from running errands to discover that someone had tried brute-forcing my front door with a crowbar.
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