Intel to also add RNG

[coderman]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 10:04 PM, Peter Gutmann
<pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> ...
> A very small entity that (in its analog form) requires custom manufacturing
> steps, is affected by every minor change to the material, the process, die
> shrinks, you name it, and that most customers don't even know exists.  So
you
> need to rework, re-evaluate, and re-test it every time anything changes,
and
> your customer won't pay extra for it.

i agree completely on all of the sad realities related to the
non-existence of pervasive hw crypto facilities.

the power consumption argument is a strawman though. the VIA docs
stated a power consumption difference when XSTORE is configured and
polled frequently vs. explicitly disabled and unused. the details are
fuzzy though, and i suspect it's the rest of the pipeline around
actual use of HWRNG state and moving across cache/bus lines...

i would be curious to know the power details on any of the hw entropy
sources, if any are out there.

best regards,