Gathering entropy for PRNGs on MVS

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From: Duke Arber
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 16:25

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I'm working on porting a cryptographic library to IBM's MVS (aka. OS/390 and
z/OS) operating system.  One of the tasks is gathering data with sufficient
entropy for seeding the libraries PRNG (Pseudo Random Number Generator).  It
requires about 1-4K of data.

The programs using the library are running in a non-authorized state (not
APF authorized).  This requirement has made it difficult to find any data
from within the address space that has sufficient entropy.  A non-authorized
address space does not have access to any system-wide counters.

The address spaces will be started at system boot time (IPL time) and on
request throughout the life of an IPL.  Please keep in mind that the IPL
sequence is the same every time and often MVS systems have an IPL schedule
to accommodate testing periods (e.g. IPL occurs every Sunday at 3:00 AM).

Does anyone know of data sources on MVS available to non-authorized programs
with sufficient entropy for seeding PRNGs?

Thanks in advance.

Duke Arber

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From: "Duke Arber" <duke_arber@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: sci.crypt.random-numbers,bit.listserv.ibm-main,sci.crypt
Subject: Gathering entropy for PRNGs on MVS
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 11:25:45 -0500
Organization: MindSpring Enterprises
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