From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Michael Heerdegen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Noob dumb question (extending emacs) Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:28:10 +0200 Message-ID: <87cznusu79.fsf@web.de> References: <86k0i6uoxd.fsf@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> <871r4ernmt.fsf@zoho.eu> <87o87hnrpt.fsf@zoho.eu> <87y26kkuag.fsf@web.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="2705"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/29.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:S98/vjL8GqGHTQ02MNOWjE84BOw= Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Oct 24 10:28:45 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1meYs0-0000QM-9m for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:28:44 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33126 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1meYry-0007Vj-04 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 24 Oct 2021 04:28:42 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:39270) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1meYrb-0007Vb-Ml for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Oct 2021 04:28:19 -0400 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]:53472) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1meYrZ-0000SC-6L for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Oct 2021 04:28:19 -0400 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1meYrX-000AFb-Cs for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:28:15 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -13 X-Spam_score: -1.4 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.4 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN=0.249, FREEMAIL_FROM=0.001, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.25, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "help-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.help:134094 Archived-At: Jean Louis writes: > How I see it, it is very easy to set random seed by providing some > automatically generated, random string to `random', such as those from > the system's /proc directory. Then you just consult a second source of entropy. Which is more or less the conclusion: don't rely on the entropy of Emacs' `random' function. If that other source is a reliable source of more entropy, you don't need Emacs' `random' at all. If it is not, you have gained nothing. And there is another problem which would make things much worse: when Emacs `random' number generator operates with 48 bit numbers (which seems to be the case, but I didn't check the sources), each algorithm calling `random' can only generate passwords with an entropy of maximally 48 bit, no matter what the entropy of the seed is. Michael.