The IESG has approved the following document: - 'Randomness Requirements for Security ' <draft-eastlake-randomness2-10.txt> as a BCP This document has been reviewed in the IETF but is not the product of an IETF Working Group. The IESG contact person is Russ Housley. Technical Summary Security systems are built on strong cryptographic algorithms that foil pattern analysis attempts. However, the security of these systems is dependent on generating secret quantities for passwords, cryptographic keys, and similar quantities. The use of pseudo-random processes to generate secret quantities can result in pseudo- security. The sophisticated attacker of these security systems may find it easier to reproduce the environment that produced the secret quantities, searching the resulting small set of possibilities, than to locate the quantities in the whole of the potential number space. Choosing random quantities to foil a resourceful and motivated adversary is surprisingly difficult. This document points out many pitfalls in using traditional pseudo-random number generation techniques for choosing such quantities. It recommends the use of truly random hardware techniques and shows that the existing hardware on many systems can be used for this purpose. It provides suggestions to ameliorate the problem when a hardware solution is not available. And it gives examples of how large such quantities need to be for some applications. Working Group Summary This is an individual submission, and it is not the product of any IETF Working Group. Protocol Quality This document was reviewed by Russell Housley for the IESG. _______________________________________________ IETF-Announce@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
