bogus random entropy sources

Posted Feb 6, 2012 21:33 UTC (Mon) by tconnors (guest, #60528)
In reply to: bogus random entropy sources by jzbiciak
Parent article: Solid-state storage devices and the block layer

> Modern CPUs have accelerators for all sorts of things as standard equipment. Why not random numbers? We spend countless millions of transistors on ever larger caches and datapaths. Surely they could spare a few for a really high quality true random number generator.

Because random number generators are only used for cryptography, and only terrorists use cryptography. Are you a terrorist?

bogus random entropy sources

Posted Feb 6, 2012 21:40 UTC (Mon) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

some chips do have high quality random number generators built in.

bogus random entropy sources

Posted Feb 7, 2012 7:50 UTC (Tue) by cladisch (✭ supporter ✭, #50193) [Link]

The Windows 8 Hardware Certification Requirements demand that "Connected Standby"-capable device (i.e., mobile ones) have encryption acceleration and a RNG.

> Business Justification:
> Core cryptographic functions are used in Windows to provide platform integrity as well as protection of user data.
(note the priorities)

In completely unrelated news, all recent AMD and Intel processors support AES-NI, and Intel has announced that Ivy Bridge processors will have a RNG.