From: scott@... Date: 2016-05-03T22:19:05+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:75339] [Ruby trunk Bug#9569] SecureRandom should try /dev/urandom first Issue #9569 has been updated by Scott Arciszewski. Let's look at some OpenSSL RNG failures outside the Ruby microcosm: * https://emboss.github.io/blog/2013/08/21/openssl-prng-is-not-really-fork-safe/ * https://github.com/ramsey/uuid/issues/80 * https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/367 If you're still dead set on using OpenSSL for a RNG, just know that when people say things like https://twitter.com/raptortech97/status/727345563440656385 about PHP being insecure, it applies tenfold to Ruby because of everyone's stubborn refusal to fix their RNG. To wit (here's a CSPRNG done right): https://github.com/php/php-src/commits/master/ext/standard/random.c ---------------------------------------- Bug #9569: SecureRandom should try /dev/urandom first https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/9569#change-58468 * 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: