[Ach] removed outdated info on Linux RNG / haveged

Alice Wonder alice at librelamp.com
Tue Jul 11 18:52:56 CEST 2017



On 07/11/2017 09:00 AM, Aaron Zauner wrote:
>> On 10 Jul 2017, at 10:35, Florian Stosse <florian.stosse at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Further insights I posted on GitHub, I forward it there :
>>
>> Got an answer from Andre Seznec (credited as one of the main authors : https://www.irisa.fr/caps/projects/hipsor/contact.php)
>>
>> He replied that, in his opinion, the principles on which HAVEGE and the haveged daemon are built are still valid, and in fact are more efficient today given the microprocessors architectural evolution (more complex architectures and more non-predictable states usable to gather entropy).
> Has the author taken a look at how CSPRNGs are implemented currently in Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Windows? I don't think HAVEGE's concept is still valid. We have high speed, high-security CSPRNGs now in every major operating system, without the need for additional user-land daemons that are prone to exploitation, user-error or bugs. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Where do you see the benefits of using HAVEGE over - say - Linux's `urandom` char device as implemented in Linux 4.x?
>
>> He acknowledged that he did not touch the code for +/- 10 years, and I couldn't not reach the listed maintainer. On Debian, the latest maintainer upload was on november 2016.
> With security critical code - at least for me - this is a clear no-go.

Please just stop.

Give an acedemically sound (as in published exploit or peer reviewed 
paper) demonstrating a flaw in haveged or just stop.

Change for the sake of change is idiotic.


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