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Prevent SystemEntropyCache writes to disable drive spin-up
Authored by: _merlin on Jan 26, '04 07:15:42PM

The file we're talking about here is used to initialise the random number gerneators on startup (/dev/random and /dev/urandom).

While the machine is running, the random number generators are fed entropy directly from fluctuations in the kernel. When the machine starts up, entropy from SystemEntropyCache is loaded (presumably from the last time the machine was running).

So if you prevent writes to this file, your machine will not generate random numbers acceptably until at least a few minutes after startup.

Yes, this can cause security to suffer.



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