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Feb 19, 2019 at 23:47 answer added Luc timeline score: 0
Apr 13, 2017 at 12:48 history edited CommunityBot
replaced http://crypto.stackexchange.com/ with https://crypto.stackexchange.com/
Sep 12, 2016 at 14:55 comment added Maarten Bodewes Note that usually a PRNG already does things like that when handling new entropy. So usually you would not get any benefit from it for the simple reason that it is already performed. Entropy needs to be extracted / compacted anyway before it can be mixed with the state ($e$).
S Sep 12, 2016 at 12:28 history suggested Greenonline CC BY-SA 3.0
Fixed grammar, added code formatting and added descriptive links
Sep 12, 2016 at 11:26 review Suggested edits
S Sep 12, 2016 at 12:28
Sep 9, 2016 at 1:08 history edited Chris McCormick CC BY-SA 3.0
added 270 characters in body
Sep 8, 2016 at 23:56 vote accept Chris McCormick
Sep 8, 2016 at 12:10 comment added SEJPM In theory, iterated hashing may have problems that simple feeding hashing does not (e.g. collisions and same paths and stuff like that), but in practice there's no relevant difference.
Sep 8, 2016 at 12:00 answer added Daan Bakker timeline score: 2
Sep 8, 2016 at 10:47 comment added Chris McCormick Yes, "use /dev/urandom" is 100% correct, but for the sake of this question I am interested in the mathematics of why hashing iteratively might or might not produce better randomness. Do you think I should I add to the question "assume the user does not have access to actual good sources of entropy like /dev/urandom"?
Sep 8, 2016 at 10:32 comment added r3mainer This is pretty much what happens anyway — either automatically when you interact with the system, or manually when you send anything to /dev/random. For example, Yarrow is based in part on the SHA-1 hashing algorithm. Just use /dev/random. It's perfectly adequate.
Sep 8, 2016 at 8:01 history edited Chris McCormick CC BY-SA 3.0
edited title
Sep 8, 2016 at 6:22 history asked Chris McCormick CC BY-SA 3.0