Theoretical vs. practical cryptography in the kernel

Shortly before the release of the 5.8 kernel, a brief patch to a pseudo-random-number generator (PRNG) used by the networking stack was quietly applied to the kernel. As is the norm for such things, the changelog gave no indication that a security vulnerability had been fixed, but that turns out indeed to be the case. The resulting controversy had little to do with the original vulnerability, though, and everything to do with how cryptographic security is managed in the kernel. Figuring prominently in the discussion was the question of whether theoretical security can undermine security in the real world.

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