Re: [PATCH v43 01/15] Linux Random Number Generator

Am Sonntag, 21. November 2021, 23:42:33 CET schrieb Jason A. Donenfeld:

Hi Jason,

Hi Stephan,

You've posted it again, and yet I still believe this is not the
correct design or direction. I do not think the explicit goal of
extended configurability ("flexibility") or the explicit goal of being
FIPS compatible represent good directions, and I think this introduces
new problems rather than solving any existing ones.

The members from the Linux distributions that are on copy on this may tell you 
a different story. They all developed their own downstream patches to somehow 
add the flexibility that is needed for them. So, we have a great deal of 
fragmentation at the resting-foundation of Linux cryptography.

Then the implementation of the flexibility in the LRNG is done such that 
irrespecitve of which options are selected, the LRNG operates always at a 
secure state.

While there are
ways the current RNG could or even should be improved -- or rewritten
-- this approach is still not that, no matter how many times you post
it. It is almost as though you hope this somehow gets accepted through
a general apathy that might develop by the 1000th revision, when
cranks like me and others no longer have the motivation to keep
responding with the same thing. But here we are again.

My own experience pushing something that didn't have substantial
enough buy-in from existing maintainers (the Zinc crypto library)
ultimately led me to stop pushing in order to not alienate folks, step
back, and listen a bit. Eventually somebody reached out to work with
me (Ard) and we submitted a good compromise collaboration that we all
generally felt better about. In this case, your cryptographic design
tastes are sufficiently divergent from mine that I'm not sure how far
such a thing would go, but it also seems to me that continually
pushing the same thing over and over isn't winning you any points here
either. Submission by attrition is not an outcome anybody should want.

Sorry to be so blunt. It's just that my, "I don't like this" is the
same as it was the last time, and I'm not aware of anything
significant in that area changing this time.

I have received numerous technical comments from various Linux developers. All 
were integrated. None of these comments hinted to requestes in changing the 
design.

That said, even when you refer to already suggested architectural differnces, 
I yet have to first receive them,

Jason

Ciao
Stephan