GNU bug report logs - #22202
24.5; SECURITY ISSUE -- Emacs Server vulnerable to random number generator attack on Windows systems

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Package: emacs;

Reported by: Demetri Obenour <demetriobenour <at> gmail.com>

Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2015 10:09:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: security

Found in version 24.5

Done: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Richard Copley <rcopley <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: 22202 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Demetri Obenour <demetriobenour <at> gmail.com>, David Engster <deng <at> randomsample.de>
Subject: bug#22202: 24.5; SECURITY ISSUE -- Emacs Server vulnerable to random number generator attack on Windows systems
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2015 21:15:13 +0000
> That'd be the worst of both worlds, IMO: a not-so-good PRNG with no
> way whatsoever to get a repeatable sequence.  Am I right?

Oh dear. Yes. Worse than that, repeatability is part of the contract for
the lisp "random" function, so seed_random() and get_random() are
constrained to be deterministic. Right?

Seems as though init_random() is the only place that could use
CryptGenRandom, which is a pity if you're trying to confine the
changes to w32.c.




This bug report was last modified 9 years and 178 days ago.

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