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

[Guido van Rossum]

So secrets.py needs an upgrade; it currently uses random.SysRandom.

On Thursday, June 9, 2016, Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> wrote:

> [Nikolaus Rath]
> >> Aeh, what the tin says is "return random bytes".
>
> [Larry Hastings]
> > What the tin says is "urandom", which has local man pages that dictate
> > exactly how it behaves.  On Linux the "urandom" man page says:
> >
> >     A read from the /dev/urandom device will not block waiting for more
> entropy.
> >     If there is not sufficient entropy, a pseudorandom number generator
> is used
> >     to create the requested bytes.
> >
> > os.urandom() needs to behave like that on Linux, which is how it behaved
> in
> > Python 2.4 through 3.4.
>
> I agree (with Larry).  If the change hadn't already been made, nobody
> would get anywhere trying to make it now.  So best to pretend it was
> never made to begin with ;-)
>
> The tin that _will_ say "return random bytes" in Python will
> be`secrets.token_bytes()`.  That's self-evidently (to me) where the
> "possibly block forever" implementation belongs.
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-- 
--Guido (mobile)
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