Technical feasibility of decrypting https by replacing the computer's PRNG
Once again, if you believe this is a real issue, you're logically enjoined from using practically any hardware cryptography, including the AES instructions or any HSM.<p>Moreover, if you're serious about having a problem with rdrand, you really can't be doing crypto on the x86 platform (putting you between a rock and a hard place, owing to that HSM injunction) --- that's because you don't actually know what the microarchitecture of the x86 platform is. It's far more complicated than the instruction set, or even what's documented in the PRM.<p>Aciicmez was able to recover keys from an Intel branch target buffer (the branch prediction cache). Did you know what the BTB was before I wrote this? Well, the BTB is public knowledge. How many microarchitectural features are there on the platform that aren't public knowledge? <i>Probably lots</i>. Not being a tinfoil hat type, I tend not to believe that any of these are malicious. But if you think rdrand is a plot by the NSA, you <i>are</i> a tinfoil hat type, and so let me help you be consistent: you need to stop using AWS right now, and stop using x86 platforms to run your encryption code. The NSA can pay $50 to get a VM on the same AWS box as runs your VMs, and then use local side channels to siphon out your secrets.<p>(Actually, so can the Slovak Mafia, which is a reason to be leery of doing any crypto on AWS.)<p>If you can't tell, I think this whole kerfluffle about Linux using rdrand is pretty silly.