[Discuss] How do I add entropy?

Kent Borg kentborg at borg.org
Sun Sep 7 14:01:22 EDT 2014


On 09/07/2014 12:38 PM, Bill Ricker wrote:
> An RSA key of size 4096 bits has *security* equivalent somewhere 
> between 128 and 200 bits (which sometimes gets rounded down to 128 
> since < 256 bits), but that is *not* a measure of how much entropy its 
> generation will consume. Generating two 2kbit primes will consume a 
> *lot* of entropy from /dev/random, because each random candidate-prime 
> must be tested by hundreds of random 'witness' numbers (potentially 
> upto 1kbit in size). 

Oops.

-kb




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