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

[Stefan Krah]

Nathaniel Smith <njs <at> pobox.com> writes:
> In practice, your proposal means that ~all existing code that uses
> os.urandom becomes incorrect and should be switched to either secrets
> or random. This is *far* more churn for end-users than Nick's
> proposal.

This should only concern code that a) was specifically written for
3.5.0/3.5.1 and b) implements a serious cryptographic application
in Python.

I think b) is not a good idea anyway due to timing and side channel
attacks and the lack of secure wiping of memory. Such applications
should be written in C, where one does not have to predict the
behavior of multiple layers of abstractions.


Stefan Krah