Bugs item #1680034, was opened at 2007-03-13 17:17
Message generated for change (Comment added) made by gbrandl
You can respond by visiting:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=1680034&group_id=5470
Please note that this message will contain a full copy of the comment thread,
including the initial issue submission, for this request,
not just the latest update.
Category: Python Library
Group: Python 2.4
>Status: Closed
>Resolution: Invalid
Priority: 5
Private: No
Submitted By: Steve Tyler (stephent98)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: Importing SystemRandom wastes entropy.
Initial Comment:
Importing SystemRandom wastes entropy.
The strace snippet shows a 16 byte read from /dev/urandom, which is presumably
done to seed a random number generator. However SystemRandom does not need a
seed, so the read is not needed.
test case:
#!/usr/bin/python
from random import SystemRandom
strace snippet:
open("/dev/urandom", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 4
read(4, "\\\333\277Q\243>K\350 \321\316\26_\271\364~", 16) = 16
close(4) = 0
Python version:
python-2.4.4-1.fc6 (Fedora Core 6)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Comment By: Georg Brandl (gbrandl)
Date: 2007-03-13 17:32
Message:
Logged In: YES
user_id=849994
Originator: NO
This is not caused by SystemRandom, but by instantiating (and thereby
seeding) the normal (Mersenne Twister) random number generator, which is
done automatically when random is imported.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can respond by visiting:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=1680034&group_id=5470
_______________________________________________
Python-bugs-list mailing list
Unsubscribe:
http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com
