On Wednesday 30 August 2017 10:25:00 Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Hi, > > i wrote: > > > The reason why this is still not fully reflected by the man page > > > is not yet uncovered. > > Gene Heskett wrote: > > Maybe a wee bit of security by obscurity? There is that I think in > > everyones thinking on this subject. They don't want to price the > > farm so cheap that it will actually sell. > > Ah no. The obscurity principle is unpopular in cryptography. > The widely accepted method is to have the algorithms public, so they > can be analysed and discussed, and to have the secrets separated in > keys. > > Given that Theodore T'so can probably cause a text change in the man > page if he really demands it, i rather expect to find a nitpicker like > me who challenges the flat deprecation of /dev/random by some thin but > valid argument. Just a gut feeling of mine. > > > For my own decision of /dev/random against /dev/urandom: > I use either of them very rarely. I have to deal with several old > kernels of which i do not know how firm the opinions were when those > kernels were young. > So i will continue to use the legacy interface as long as it is > available. But i will not raise objections if some day it becomes > exactly the same as the /dev/urandom interface. > This is the decision of the maintainers (Theodore T'so and Neil Horman > of CRYPTOGRAPHIC RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR), whom i deem more educated > on the topic than i am. > Theodore T'so opinion IMO, carry's enough weight to more than "balance the scales" in most any argument about this... Theodore was smack in the middle of TPTB when I ditched an amiga and built a 400 MHz k6 based machine and installed red hat 5.0 on it in late 1997. So while I did have to do the early windows machines at WDTV, my awe of microsoft was soured when a network message machine running NT3.51 decided to nuke the most important library on the hard drive. Since the NT license was in those days several hundred dollars, I called microsoft and tried to explain what had happened and they not only refused to help, they accused me of being a pirate. That was their mistake, and from that day on, any specialty built machines never saw a windows install cd on my watch. I still think they has a random delay generator that was to delete that file when the delay ran out. Call it a virus, but that machine never saw the internet to get a virus, what it got for data was transmitted in the networks video streams vertical interval. If the messages received needed a reply, it took the reply and dialed up the modem on their machine to post the reply.
In the meantime, an intelligent young man taught himself about that stuff, relieving me of that responsibility. He has built several server class machines to handle all the programs in digital formats that what in now a 2 network, 6 channel tv station needs, capable of moving a 1 hour program from the receiver machine to the air server, in about 30 seconds while that air server is airing 6 separate channels. And now backups for both have been built with auto failover, even in mid program. He's good. The complex (now 6 channels of tv, 1 class C fm radio station) was recently sold since the owner died about 2 years back, and the buyers IT people wanted to replace all that linux "junk" with windows machines. Enthusiasm to convert silently died when they found the terminal room would need expanding and almost double the HVAC to support that many windows machines like they were using at all their other properties. VERY BIG ups powers it all for long enough to get a 125 kw generator up to speed, so its on the air 24/7 until its out of fuel. 500 gallon tank, so that takes a while to run low. They've got all that at their other properties including the winders headaches. This stuff Just Works, 24/7 even with 2 HD's sick and dead. I think its impressing the hell out of the windows crew the new owners have been keeping at their other stations. If not, they are dumb like a pet rock I once saw that said on one side, "turn me over" and on the other side "mmm, that felt good". > Have a nice day :) If I can recover from working on the mower deck and re-installing it over the last 4 days. Sheet metal close to toasted, had to make a 6" square, 1/4" thick plate to support the pivot bolt the deck clutch lever turns on. With luck, it may outlast me. An 82 yo body is over worked with all that rolling around on the driveway, and I've got aches in most of the major muscles today. But if it needs to be done, I'll figure out a way to do it. Raised in the farm country in Iowa, where it was a 4 hour drive to town, one way, with a team of horses in 1940. Out there, if it had to be done, you did it, or it didn't get done. And my grandfather was good at it, he had built and installed a 32 volt delco electric system, and made the Maytag washer into an electric one after it kicked back and broke grandmothers ankle starting it, a first by almost a decade in Madison County, where all the covered bridges that Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep made the movie about. I've been across most of them, and in the house twice that a guy named Marion Morrison was born in. Those of you familiar with old western movies know him as John Wayne, one of hollywoods true patriots. Me Special? Only in my own mind... :) > Thomas Cheers Thomas, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
