[PLUG] Re: WipeInfo Equivalent

Russ Gilman-Hunt (YAR) gilmanhunt at comcast.net
Thu Dec 21 20:38:08 UTC 2006


On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:37:55 -0800
Aaron Burt <aaron at bavariati.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 21, 2006 at 11:43:11AM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
> > What's wrong with dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda?
> 
> /dev/random runs out of entropy quickly.  Best use /dev/urandom
> instead.
> 
> I remember hearing an ex-Sequent dev griping about how slow the Linux
> random-number device was.  "How hard can it be to generate random
> numbers?  I can write a program to generate them faster myself!"
> 
> When I tried to explain the difference between real and pseudo-random
> numbers, his eyes glazed over.  I don't think he even heard the
> important bit, "/dev/urandom is faster" before he wandered off to find
> someone more gripe-friendly.
> 
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Just out of curiosity, what makes urandom so much better, and why don't
we just link /dev/random to /dev/urandom? 


-- 
Russ Gilman-Hunt
http://www.arghwebworks.com/
gilmanhunt at comcast.net



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