[talk] [nycbug-talk] FreeBSD abandoning hardware randomness

[Isaac (.ike) Levy]

Hi All,

To hack on a 11 month old thread,

On Wed, 11 Dec 2013 12:08:41 -0500
Brian Callahan <bcallah at devio.us> wrote:

> >>> On December 10, 2013 09:12:40 PM EST, James E Keenan
> >>> <jkeen at verizon.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Article here:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/09/freebsd_abandoning_hardware_randomness/
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> This made the rounds in ARS yesterday too,
> >>> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we-cannot-trust-intel-and-vias-chip-based-crypto-freebsd-developers-say/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> While it's all on our mind, here's an excellent old article
> >>> detailing random facilities, focused on practical use of OpenBSD
> >>> and FreeBSD,
> >>> https://calomel.org/entropy_random_number_generators.html
> >>
> >> It was pointed out to me on that the calomel articles are not known
> >> for their correctness, which piques my curiosity:
> >>
> >> Can anyone point at solid practical documentation for using,
> >> sourcing, and validating various random subsystems on *BSD/UNIX
> >> systems?
> >
> > bcallah pointed out this gem:
> >
> > " * Computers are very predictable devices..."
> 
> Humans are also very predictable devices... maybe we can create a RNG 
> for our brains? :) We'd probably make a killing from venture
> capitalists...


TrueRNG – Hardware Random Number Generator USB
http://ubld.it/products/truerng-hardware-random-number-generator/

I'm excited to see this, what do people think?  $47 feels a bit high
though...

Rocket-
.ike