[Freedombox-discuss] Entropy from the soundcard

[bertagaz at ptitcanardnoir.org]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 11:50:06AM -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
> On 09/14/2011 10:58 AM, Michael Rogers wrote:
> > I don't have access to a Freedombox prototype, but I was wondering
> > whether someone who does could do a couple of quick experiments?
> 
> You could "apt-get install randomsound" on your own machine (or with a
> USB device you think might be an option), audit it, and report your
> findings :)  It doesn't need to be a Freedombox prototype to verify that
> the software is doing a reasonable thing.
> 
>   http://www.digital-scurf.org/software/randomsound
> 
> If it does work, and your audit writeup is straightforward, then someone
> who has the specific hardware in question can try to replicate it.
> 
> thanks for pushing on this!

I ran it for some time, but wasn't really comfortable with having my
microphone always listening. Not to mention the larsen you sometime gets
when some app raise the volume.
I've switched to haveged, which works well:

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail
3467

Or the FB project could ship the box with a lavalamp ;)

bert.