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authorDamien Miller <djm@mindrot.org>2000-10-25 14:47:35 +1100
committerDamien Miller <djm@mindrot.org>2000-10-25 14:47:35 +1100
commitdf1b6452ee4d70b73b665d8a85e2580f82bb15d5 (patch)
tree9232e06c0c24b1abcae4c26b9eb5e7d551b6ceef /WARNING.RNG
parent6f9c337401d455b92d85913432f0fc1129812b1f (diff)
Reword
Diffstat (limited to 'WARNING.RNG')
-rw-r--r--WARNING.RNG13
1 files changed, 6 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/WARNING.RNG b/WARNING.RNG
index 5f129f40..21f4901c 100644
--- a/WARNING.RNG
+++ b/WARNING.RNG
@@ -12,16 +12,14 @@ A particularly pernicious problem arises with DSA keys (used by the
ssh2 protocol). Performing a DSA signature (which is required for
authentication), entails the use of a 160 bit random number. If an
attacker can predict this number, then they can deduce your *private*
-key and impersonate you.
+key and impersonate you or your hosts.
If you are using the builtin random number support (configure will
-tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety
-and consider disabling ssh2 support (by adding "Protocol 1" to
-sshd_config and ssh_config).
+tell you if this is the case), then read this document in its entirety.
Please also request that your OS vendor provides a kernel-based random
number collector (/dev/random) in future versions of your operating
-systems.
+systems by default.
On to the description...
@@ -40,9 +38,10 @@ the specified program.
The random number code will also read and save a seed file to
~/.ssh/prng_seed. This contents of this file are added to the random
-number generator at startup.
+number generator at startup. The goal here is to maintain as much
+randomness between sessions as possible.
-This approach presents two problems:
+The entropy collection code has two main problems:
1. It is slow.