<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Have the Entropy Key installed and working on Ubuntu 11.10 with no apparent problems. Question about the</div><div>output from the various data streams available on the device sockets.</div><div><br></div><div>In Linux without an entropy key /dev/random is "blocked" and released in chunks from the entropy pool as entropy is available and /dev/urandom is not blocked and is a basically a PRNG that is rekeyed (not sure how often) from the entropy pool.</div><div><br></div><div>With the Entropy Key I notice there are 4 data streams:</div><div>1. The new /dev/tty???? has encrypted/armoured data from the key to the entropyd,</div><div>2. /dev/random seems to function the same as before, but much faster due to the Entropy Key,</div><div>3. /dev/urandom seems to function from a PRNG as before, but I would assume it is getting
rekeyed much more frequently, so the data should be of a better quality (is that a fair assumption?).</div><div>4. /dev/hwrng which is producing data at about 4 times as fast as /dev/random.</div><div><br></div><div>What are the entropy qualities of these devices with Entropy Key installed?</div><div>Which ones are truly random and which are rapidly keyed PRNGs?</div><div>Is /dev/hwrng direct output from the entropy key (after decrypting) or does it get modified by the kernel in some other way (mixed/rehashed)?</div><div>Lastly, why (maybe it's just my machine) does the /dev/hwrng output data about 4 times as fast as /dev/random if they are both being supplied by the same source of purely random data? Shouldn't they be similar is rate.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I was hoping that someone could comment on these questions, and whether or not /dev/hwrng is suitable for cryptographic keys or should I stick with
/dev/random?</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you!<br></div><div>Bryan</div><div><br></div></div></body></html>