Subject: Re: Entropy-gathering gizmos for NT?

From: Wei Dai <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 Mar 2000 13:44:27 -0800

On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 07:54:03AM -0800, [email-masked] wrote:
> I'm curious about what all entropy-gathering gizmos, a la "Entropy Gathering 
> Deamon" (EGD) <url:http://www.lothar.com/tech/crypto/>, might be available 
> for/on NT -- anyone know?
> 
> My understanding is that such stuff is effectively built-into Win2K -- anyone 
> have comments/observations on that?

It's built into Microsoft's base CryptoAPI service provider, which is
available on Win2K and any Windows OS after Windows 95 I think. You can
do something like this:

// untested
HCRYPTPROV hProvider = 0;
BYTE randomBytes[128];
CryptAcquireContext(&hProvider, 0, 0, PROV_RSA_FULL, CRYPT_VERIFYCONTEXT);
CryptGenRandom(hProvider, sizeof(randomBytes), randomBytes);