Speed and security of /dev/urandom

[Steven Chamberlain]

On 18/07/14 21:37, Andrey Chernov wrote:
> One of the reason I hear is that true random entropy bits can be quickly
> exhausted if every userland program will drain them so much.

True of Linux at least, I assume that's why they must make /dev/random
block when the estimated entropy in the pool is low.  Applications have
been encouraged to not excessively read even from /dev/urandom, for the
same reason, so it makes sense on Linux to stretch with RC4 or something.

Regards,
-- 
Steven Chamberlain
steven at pyro.eu.org