[OT] Combinatronics WAS Re: /dev/random and linux security issues (kinda long)

[Kevin D. Clark]

aluminumsulfate at earthlink.net writes:

>  (1) Always double check your crypto.
>  (2) Never use Perl BigInt's for anything ever... especially crypto.
>  (3) When in doubt, use LISP.

I believe that your Perl code is buggy.  Why are you using ord()?  Do
you understand that when you read from /dev/u?random you're getting a
raw integer value?

I have attached an updated string2dec.pl program.

Generally, when I am writing code and I encounter a strange result, my
first inclination is to assume that perhaps I did something wrong.
But you seem to be different than me.

Regards,

--kevin
-- 
GnuPG ID: B280F24E                     And the madness of the crowd
alumni.unh.edu!kdc                     Is an epileptic fit
                                       -- Tom Waits


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#!/usr/bin/perl

# read MSB-first 8-bit bytes from STDIN and print its value as a decimal integer
use bignum;

while (read STDIN,$byte,1) {
	$val = $val * 256;
	$val += unpack("C", $byte);
}
print "$val\n" if ($val ne "");