Capturing Chaos: Harvesting Environmental Entropy

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BIO:
Our speaker this month is Carey Parker. Carey is the author of the book “Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: A Step-by-Step Guide to Computer Security and Privacy for Non-Techies”. He hosts a podcast of the same name, as well as a blog and a newsletter. He recently retired from a 28-year career in software engineering to focus on teaching others how to defend their digital devices and protect their personal data.

TALK SUMMARY:
Much is made for the need for strong passwords and keys, but most cryptographic processes also require a source of entropy. While computers are excellent at doing what they're told, they suck at generating true randomness. Even when gathering high quality entropy, the pool can be quickly depleted with many processes invoking cryptographic functions in rapid succession. I will discuss why entropy is so important, give examples of randomness failures, and discuss techniques for generating high quality random values in low-cost embedded systems.

HOW TO ATTEND:
Capital Factory is located at 701 Brazos Street, on the 1st floor of the Omni Hotel. We are in the Devvie meeting room. To locate Devvie, locate Capital Factory's main event room off the Omni lobby, Voltron, Suite 150. Once inside, there should be someone at the desk to direct you to our meetup, but, if no one is there, proceed to the left past the kitchen and down the hallway, Devvie is right around the corner. You may also message us on this event or message us at @EFFaustin on Twitter or @effaustin on Mastodon if you are having trouble finding us. Please note that the room will be locked and EFF-Austin will not have access until 10-15 minutes before 7:00pm CST. We will try to have someone in the Omni lobby earlier than that in front of the Voltron doors to greet you if you arrive early, but otherwise just wait in the lobby until you are let in.

Talk will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/austintechlive and will later be archived at https://www.youtube.com/user/effaustin. Questions for the speaker from virtual attendees may be submitted via the Youtube livestream chat, our Twitter account, @EFFaustin, our Mastodon account, @effaustin, or our Bluesky account, @effaustin.bsky.social.

Parking for the Omni Garage can be validated at the Capital Factory front desk inside room Voltron, Suite 150, reducing the cost to $8. If no one is at the desk, check with EFF-Austin meetup organizers, we can provide you with one. Attendees must park after 5pm and leave before 10pm to receive the discount, otherwise they will be charged full price, which is $3.25 for every 30 minutes. Affordable street park is also available nearby. Details: https://capitalfactory.com/parking/

AFTER PARTY:
Join us for the discussion from 7:00PM-9:00PM, followed by drinks and camaraderie from 9:00PM-10:00PM in the Omni Hotel lobby.