Questions about key generation and RNG

[Werner Koch]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:46, calestyo at scientia.net said:

> It seems that during key generation both happens, and at least once it is
> called with level=0.
>
> Why? And does this have any negative security impact?

    GCRY_WEAK_RANDOM = 0,
    GCRY_STRONG_RANDOM = 1,
    GCRY_VERY_STRONG_RANDOM = 2

Nowadays GCRY_WEAK_RANDOM is an alias for GCRY_STRONG_RANDOM because it
is better to explictily use gcry_create_nonce if you need "weak" random
numbers.

In any case GCRY_WEAK_RANDOM is used during key generation to create
test vectors for the self-test; there are no security problems with
that.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner



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