Re: Tempfile vulnerabilities

From: Seth David Schoen (schoenat_private)
Date: Mon Feb 07 2000 - 16:01:21 PST

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    Ian Turner writes:
    
    > > Can be so easy to DoS cryptographic software?
    >
    > Yes. If you don't trust your users to not deplete the entropy, then don't
    > give them permission to read it.
    
    An intermediate possibility is to have multiple RNGs with multiple sources
    of entropy, or multiple RNGs with entropy divided among them somehow, or
    a single RNG which enforces a reasonable policy of some sort when multiple
    processes want to access it at once.
    
    Modern multiuser operating systems have solved all _kinds_ of problems around
    concurrency and dealing with contention over a shared resource.  There is
    no reason that they should not be able to do exactly the same thing for an
    entropy pool, if it becomes an issue.
    
    --
    Seth David Schoen <schoenat_private>  | And do not say, I will study when I
    Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
    down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5
    



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