[clug] entropy

[Nemo -earth native-]

On Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 11:10:01AM +1000, Martijn van Oosterhout did utter:
> cache. One bit of entropy per network packet would be enough for most
> things.

"most" isn't good enough for hte paranoid who want /dev/random to be
truly crypto usable, and there is /dev/urandom for anythign that will
suffice with pseudorandom randomness on those occasions when entropy is
empty. 

> Basically, you need to find out what *does* count as entropy if network
> traffic doesn't. If hard disks interrupts count, maybe a find / from a
> cronjob every couple of hours. That's the only easily controllable thing I
> can think of.

I know I've heard of patches in the past that let you give greater
control over what does/doesn't contribute to entropy...

A quick google... 
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rml/netdev-random/README-netdev-random

This IS a kernel patch however, but would appear to give you the control
required to feed entropy from the network :)

.../Nemo
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                                                    earth native