From df1b6452ee4d70b73b665d8a85e2580f82bb15d5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Damien Miller Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 14:47:35 +1100 Subject: Reword --- WARNING.RNG | 13 ++++++------- 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) (limited to 'WARNING.RNG') 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. -- cgit v1.2.3