[colug-432] Random Generator

[Scott McCarty]

Some motherboards and newer Intel processors have special hardware to read from an electrical arc to generate random data.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone

<div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: tom <thomas.w.cranston at gmail.com> </div><div>Date:05/24/2014  1:17 PM  (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: Central OH Linux User Group - 432xx <colug-432 at colug.net> </div><div>Subject: [colug-432] Random Generator </div><div>
</div>I decided to change my Ebay password. After reading the timely password 
survey discussion, and other sources I decided to use a lengthy random 
password.

dd if=/dev/random bs=1 count=48 2>/dev/null | base64 -w 0 | rev | cut -b 
2- | rev
jdLtcA0QawkgrYWDWkMEhAy9JCPX0hCwU/H0emcTew7QuTowMLax1tzKiqsFWhh


I wanted to see if that length exceeded ebay's limit. No I am not going 
to use that password. While writing it down I noticed elements that 
could qualify as dictionary words: awk, ME, JCP, emc, Tow, Lax.

I then went for a shorter password. It appears to be more random:

  dd if=/dev/random bs=1 count=32 2>/dev/null | base64 -w 0 | rev | cut 
-b 2- | rev
nEh2cXZ+qb648Im9GbOh4i3Ls88TNKcKPraq4vp4TkY

Looks like the first command line is running out of resources in my 
laptop. It was last booted 10 days ago. Dell Inspiron 1520. Pentium 
DualCore 64 bit. @ GB RAM.

Is there a better command line to produce a random password? Anything I 
can do with my laptop to produce more randomness, like increase the 
number of processes running?

Tom

_______________________________________________
colug-432 mailing list
colug-432 at colug.net
http://lists.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug-432
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.colug.net/pipermail/colug-432/attachments/20140524/b1cc8e65/attachment.html