Re: DSM segment handle generation in background workers

On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 08:22:42PM +1300, Thomas Munro wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 6:34 PM Noah Misch <noah(at)leadboat(dot)com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 05:50:26PM +1300, Thomas Munro wrote:
> > > On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 3:24 PM Noah Misch <noah(at)leadboat(dot)com> wrote:
> > > > What counts is the ease of predicting a complete seed. HEAD's algorithm has
> > > > ~13 trivially-predictable bits, and the algorithm that stood in BackendRun()
> > > > from 98c5065 until 197e4af had no such bits. You're right that the other 19
> > > > bits are harder to predict than any given 19 bits under the old algorithm, but
> > > > the complete seed remains more predictable than it was before 197e4af.
> > >
> > > However we mix them, given that the source code is well known, isn't
> > > an attacker's job really to predict the time and pid, two not
> > > especially well guarded secrets?
> >
> > True. Better to frame the issue as uniform distribution of seed, not
> > unpredictability of seed selection.
>
> What do you think about the attached?

You mentioned that you rewrote the algorithm because the new function had a
TimestampTz. But the BackendRun() code, which it replaced, also had a
TimestampTz. You can reuse the exact algorithm. Is there a reason to change?