Collecting entropy in headless systems

[Bill Stewart]

At 07:12 AM 8/4/2006, Ralf-Philipp Weinmann wrote:
>On Aug 3, 2006, at 9:21 PM, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:
>
>>Windows sucks.  (but you knew that already)  It has no /dev/random or
>>/dev/urandom, and I'm faced with a need to collect some good-quality
>>entropy for a crypto app.  Adding to the merriment, the systems
>>involved
>>will be semi-headless and are unlikely to have a hardware RNG.  (e.g.
>>though they may have rodentia and keyboards, neither is likely to
>>be in
>>use, and I can't require a HWRNG)  All the entropy collectors I've
>>seen
>>mentioned for Windows (and there aren't many... EGADS seems to be the
>>leading contender) use keyboard timing and mouse position as primary
>>sources.

Lots of motherboards have audio on them, so depending on
what you mean by "semi-headless" that may be a noise source.
Add a microphone and overdrive it...