On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Mark Murray wrote:
> Hi
>
> > + /* Encode the PID (with 1 bit of randomness) into 3 base-64 chars */
> > + pid = getpid() | (arc4random() & 0x00020000);
>
> What is the purpose of this? It looks hugely wasteful to me. If you
> really need a single random bit, it is not good to waste a block of
> hard-gained gryptographic randomness; can you not use a pseudo-random
> bit-generator?
arc4random() does not consume entropy except the first time it is called
and when explicitly reseeded through arc4random_stir(). Apart from that
it's a deterministic function (the arc4 stream cipher), but it's still a
reasonably good cryptographic PRNG because arc4 is a cryptographically
strong algorithm.
Kris
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