From: azet@... Date: 2016-01-02T15:11:22+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:72671] [Ruby trunk - Bug #9569] SecureRandom should try /dev/urandom first Issue #9569 has been updated by Aaron Zauner. The following is the output of your 'SecureRandom' construction vs. the Linux `/dev/urandom` facility: http://nopaste.narf.at/show/EPVj9ETuMIcrCXKErsS6/ http://nopaste.narf.at/show/i0EJbkQrL3SXurfQZ524/ As you can see your RNG is less secure than the one on my Debian installation serves via the kernel. ---------------------------------------- Bug #9569: SecureRandom should try /dev/urandom first https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/9569#change-55922 * Author: Corey Csuhta * Status: Rejected * Priority: Normal * Assignee: ruby-core * ruby -v: * Backport: ---------------------------------------- Right now, `SecureRandom.random_bytes` tries to detect an OpenSSL to use before it tries to detect `/dev/urandom`. I think it should be the other way around. In both cases, you just need random bytes to unpack, so SecureRandom could skip the middleman (and [second point of failure](http://sockpuppet.org/blog/2014/02/25/safely-generate-random-numbers/)) and just talk to `/dev/urandom` directly if it's available. Is this a case of just re-ordering the two code chunks so that `/dev/urandom` is tried first? Relevant lines: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/lib/securerandom.rb#L59-L90 -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/ Unsubscribe: