Re: "random" number seeds vs. Netscape

[Eric Blossom <eb@comsec.com>]

> 
> What I would like:
> 
>     Any OS has access to a number of real-world physical sources of
>     randomness. This information is not made available to a user level
>     process. How long did that last seek take? Was there any noise on
>     the microphone? It would be good if the OS could gather that
>     information and make some set of bits available to any process that
>     asks. Having this be part of all OSes would make my job easier.

We've got a *real* hardware random number generator that was developed
for our secure phones.  If you are seriously interested, we can
glue the RNG onto the end of a serial port for you.  It generates
about 8000 bits of uncorrelated noise / second.

Eric Blossom
COMSEC Partners
707-577-0409