[Python-Dev] BDFL ruling request: should we block forever waiting for high-quality random bits? (original) (raw)

Larry Hastings larry at hastings.org
Thu Jun 16 02:52:19 EDT 2016


On 06/15/2016 11:45 PM, Barry Warsaw wrote:

So we very clearly provided platform-dependent caveats on the cryptographic quality of os.urandom(). We also made a strong claim that there's a direct connection between os.urandom() and /dev/urandom on "Unix-like system(s)".

We broke that particular promise in 3.5. and semi-fixed it 3.5.2.

Well, 3.5.2 hasn't happened yet. So if you see it as still being broken, please speak up now.

Why do you call it only "semi-fixed"? As far as I understand it, the semantics of os.urandom() in 3.5.2rc1 are indistinguishable from reading from /dev/urandom directly, except it may not need to use a file handle.

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