Re: [Libevent-users] bug? arc4_seed_proc_sys_kernel_random_uuid() does not set arc4_seeded_ok on success

[Nick Mathewson <nickm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 7:02 AM, Joseph Spadavecchia <joseph@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi there,
>
 [...]
> AFAIK this is a bug.  Could someone please confirm?

Indeed, that looks like a bug to me.  Fortunately, it's less terrible
than it could be:  In the case where on other seed technique besides
the /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid check succeeds, we will re-seed the
PRNG way too often, and not discard the initial part of the
cipherstream, which will expose the output to statistical baises.
(The terrible version of this bug would have been the one with the
opposite effect: thinking we thought we were seeded when we weren't.)

Good thing we're only using the PRNG for DNS transaction ids.  Still,
we should get a better PRNG eventually[*]

Patching this bug in 2.0 and 2.1.

[*] (Oh hey look what I did in my spare time the other month:
https://github.com/nmathewson/libottery .  But see all the caveats in
the README.)

yrs,
--
Nick
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