Re: [gdm-list] Security?

["Ray Strode" <halfline gmail com>]

Hi,

> I was only joking when I said that.  it would be a serious regression if gdm
> suddenly became linux only.
Given Brian's extensive involvement in GDM I don't see it becoming
linux only any time soon :-).

We also have Joe Markus Clark posting FreeBSD patches fairly regularly.

> > If GRand had a reset_seed function, it wouldn't be deterministic for a
> > while after every call to reset_seed.
>
> It's deterministic if you know the seed.  Hence at best it is not
> deterministic for the number of bits of the seed.  If you can or can't guess
> the seed from the output is a different story.
Right, but reset_seed would just do what g_random_new does when
generating the initial seed.

> BTW, you can always just create a new GRand object and dump it afterwards if
> you want to seed it again.
I mentioned that earlier, I think.  One reason I rejected that idea
(aside from you wanting us to use /dev/urandom directly) was that the
glib api docs don't mention or guarantee the initial seed is 128 bits.
 I didn't think it would be a good idea to depend on an undocumented
implementation detail.

--Ray