Re: market for hardware RNG?

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 12:12 PM 11/26/96 +0000, Matthew J. Miszewski wrote:

>> 2.  Users of programs like PGP today already get at least a fairly decent 
>> RNG already.  Would they want better?  (I'm not suggesting a total 
>> replacement; I assume that the output of any hardware RNG would be hashed 
>> with more "traditional" PC sources, like disk timings, keyboard timings, 
>> etc, which should deter attempts to attack just the hardware part.)
>
>Why would you hash good RNG output? 

Re-read (read?) Applied Cryptography.  Hardware RNG's contain biases, even 
though they may only be tiny ones.  For example, a RNG based on radioactive 
decay and a geiger counter has a certain minimum "dead time" between decays 
that introduces a slight bias.  Most electronic circuits naively intended to 
generate random numbers contain similar biases.  If I build a device to 
generate ones and zeroes based on electronic noise, I must assume that there 
there will be some non-randomness in the output, however small.  This is 
somewhat equivalent to saying that there is somewhat less than 1.000000 bit 
of entropy in each bit of the RNG output.  If I recall correctly, a data 
stream with 0.5 bits of entropy per bit might be one that contains 
uncorrelated bits which are "0" 3/4s of the time, "1" 1/4 of the time.  

Fortunately, as I recall it is possible to, in effect, "distill" the 
randomness of the sample using hashing.  Start out with 200 bits with 0.5 
bits per bit of entropy, and you can produce 100 bits with 1.0000 bit per 
bit of entropy.  (Condensing the thing even further can't put more than 1 
bit of entropy into each bit; but what it does do is provide some margin for 
entropy sources whose biases may vary somewhat.)  The advantage, however, is 
that it is probably far easier to distinguish 0.2 bits per bit of entropy 
from 0.1 bits, compared with distinguishing 0.99 bits from 1.000 bits.  If 
you know you have at least 0.2 bits per bit, hashing down a factor of 10 
would produce a solidly random output.

If I understand the process correctly, this means that the "figure of merit" 
of any RNG should be the number of bits of randomized output it can 
successfully create per second.  100,000 bits per second of output with 0.5 
bits of entropy per bit is, therefore, better than 10,000 bits with 1.000 
bits per bit, because the former can be converted to 50,000 bits of unbiased 
output per second.  This result may not be exactly counter-intuitive, but it 
is at least NON-intuitive.   

But what this does do is to provide an opportunity:  Build a circuit that 
generates reasonably random output at 10x rate, hash it down to 1x, and you 
can be reasonably certain that the result is cryptographically random.  The 
software could monitor the input to ensure that it remains substantially 
better than needed to guarantee random output.



>I understand your desire to 
>deter hardware only attacks.  I just think it might be an 
>overreaction.  Of course mine could be an under-reaction 8-)

I think if the hardware RNG could be corrupted and that would compromise the 
security appreciably, it WOULD be compromised in important-enough 
situations.  However, adding hashing with more "traditional" sources of 
randomness would make the job futile.  Corrupting the hardware RNG device 
would merely make the system fall back to the current level of security.


>> 3.    Even hardware RNG's aren't "perfect":  they could be subverted, 
>> replaced, or perhaps influenced.  Would someone who was sufficiently 
>> sophisticated as to recognize the need for it actually accept a real, 
>> functioning device?
>
>It would have to go through rigorous testing in the crypto community. 
> RNGs v. PRNGs goes through a yearly debate here on cpunks.  There 
>have been some good discussions on the use of white noise and other 
>potential hardware sources.  Im not sure if hks is back up or not, 
>but you might look there.

Well, we have a chicken-and-egg problem.  Until a commonly-used program 
(like PGP, maybe) easily gives the public the option to include a hardware 
RNG as part of its sources of randomness, few people will be inclined to 
implement such devices and they will remain atrociously expensive...so 
nobody will buy them.


>If an independant entity could certify the product with a good 
>reputation for dedication to the community, you would get much 
>milage.  PGP, Inc. might be interested for instance.  I mean I have 
>used PGP for years but have not had the time to go through the code, 
>etc.  I trust it because Phil's reputation precedes him.

Well, with all due respect, if Phil hesitates to install a hardware random 
source link into a piece of software simply because he thinks that to do so 
puts his reputation on the line, he's placing a high hurdle in front of the 
development of good, economical hardware randomizers.  There's plenty that 
software can do to protect itself from a compromised hardware RNG; 
monitoring the biases of the input and hashing it more than adequately is a 
good start.  It should be possible to ensure that a hardware RNG can only 
improve security, not reduce it.


 
Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com