From: Nix <nix@esperi.org.uk>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Achim Gratz <Stromeko@nexgo.de>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
Subject: Re: random doesn't feel very random
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2012 21:11:35 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87y5kplf9k.fsf@spindle.srvr.nix> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <50465F8D.2030706@cs.ucla.edu> (Paul Eggert's message of "Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:07:41 -0700")
On 4 Sep 2012, Paul Eggert told this:
> On 09/04/2012 12:19 PM, Nix wrote:
>> I'd recommend using /dev/urandom unconditionally,
>> certainly for rare seeding operations
>
> Yes, gnulib will have a module to do that, and that's
> good enough for rare operations, but it's not enough
> in general.
Oh, agreed. But Emacs already *has* a PRNG, and nobody is suggesting
replacing it, just changing how it's seeded (and maybe making it support
multiple state vectors). For a single seeding, /dev/random is quite
enough.
> Applications like 'shred' need lots of random
> data and /dev/urandom is too slow for that. For example,
Oh yes, definitely agreed. You can get random noise sources on the order
of kilobits per second cheaply, but anything much faster than that
requires a PRNG anyway, so /dev/random devolves into an expensive one of
those.
--
NULL && (void)
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2012-09-04 20:11 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 43+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2012-08-24 5:47 random doesn't feel very random Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24 6:22 ` Tassilo Horn
2012-08-24 17:19 ` random doesn't feel very random, random doesn't feel very random, " Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24 18:50 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-25 7:46 ` Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24 6:30 ` Leo
2012-08-24 22:48 ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-24 22:57 ` Andreas Schwab
2012-08-25 20:55 ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-25 23:25 ` Leo
2012-08-26 13:12 ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-26 14:24 ` Achim Gratz
2012-08-26 23:22 ` Leo
2012-08-27 0:50 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-27 6:31 ` Simon Leinen
2012-08-27 3:41 ` Richard Stallman
2012-08-27 4:48 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31 9:41 ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 15:06 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31 15:23 ` chad
2012-08-31 17:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 19:43 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-09-01 1:18 ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-01 7:19 ` Achim Gratz
2012-09-01 13:19 ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-04 19:19 ` Nix
2012-09-04 20:07 ` Paul Eggert
2012-09-04 20:11 ` Nix [this message]
2012-09-02 12:27 ` Jason Rumney
2012-09-02 13:08 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-09-01 7:22 ` Ivan Kanis
2012-09-01 11:13 ` joakim
2012-08-31 23:04 ` Leo
2012-08-27 5:17 ` Achim Gratz
2012-08-31 9:42 ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-31 15:07 ` Stefan Monnier
2012-08-31 17:50 ` Eli Zaretskii
2012-08-26 9:06 ` Ivan Kanis
2012-08-24 7:03 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-24 9:10 ` Paul Eggert
2012-08-24 17:45 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2012-08-24 12:45 ` OT: appropriateness of "random" for playlist generation (was: random doesn't feel very random) Jeremiah Dodds
2012-08-24 14:37 ` random doesn't feel very random Drew Adams
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