That's why I used the phrase "better encapsulated" :) I don't care
particularly _where_ the randomness comes from (and on a Unix machine,
/dev/random or /dev/urandom (I can't remember which) is the proper
place). I just really, really don't want a Crypto package depending on
a Sound package. So if System supplied a hook that declared "get your
randomness here", and the base image _happened_ to connect that to
one's mic, that would be OK. But the direct dependency is bonkers.

frank

On 19 November 2013 21:27, Nicolas Cellier
<nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:
> It's because crypto must not rely on pseudo random generated numbers, they
> are considered too easy to crack.
> I guess that sound input was seen as a universal way to get some hardware
> noise...
> Nowadays, shouldn't it be something like /dev/random?
>
>
> 2013/11/19 Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com>
>>
>> Does anyone know the current state of play of the crypto team?
>>
>> We have a DSA implementation in "System-Digital Signatures" that
>> should belong in a package called "Crypto-Something", but if the other
>> stuff was better I'd rather delete this and use the proper stuff.
>>
>> Also, we need a better encapsulated source of randomness than
>> "SoundService default randomBitsFromSoundInput: 512" because crypto
>> shouldn't depend on a sound package. I don't care if something _plugs
>> that in_, but the direct reference is suboptimal.
>>
>> frank
>>
>
>
>
>