Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

There's no reason for normal userland code not part of the distribution itself ever to use /dev/random, and getrandom(2) with GRND_RANDOM unset is probably the right answer for everything.

Both Linux and BSD use a CSPRNG to satisfy /dev/{urandom,random} and getrandom, and, for future-secrecy/compromise-protection continually update their entropy pools with hashed high-entropy events (there's ~essentially no practical cryptographic reason a "seeded" CSPRNG ever needs to be rekeyed, but there are practical systems security reasons to do it).



Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: