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Quote from: ThomasV on April 07, 2013, 03:31:30 PM

Please read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5480131/will-python-systemrandom-os-urandom-always-have-enough-entropy-for-good-crypto

/dev/urandom can indeed run out of entropy if it is called repeatedly.
{snip}

Sorry for bumping the old thread.
So does that mean say i repeatedly generate seeds say 100 seeds one after the other before finally deciding the choose the seed for my wallet. Does that make the seed less secure?

no it doesn't. /dev/urandom can generate unlimited cryptographically secure random numbers. it doesn't run out.

It doesn't run out that's true.
But there's something weird definitely.
I tried it. I created seeds in electrum wizard. After 30,40 seeds the wallet closed. (may be randomness was weakening? ) . I again open and tried. Same happened again.
Also the post i quoted. Electrum developer also confirmed /dev/urandom can run out of entropy if it is called repeatedly.
Found similar concern here as well - https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/62871/does-my-electrum-wallet-become-less-secure-if-i-keep-generating-seeds-until-i-se

andrew chow's response there is the correct answer to that question. andrew is a bitcoin core contributor and knows what he's talking about:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/62894/5273

also this answer to the stackoverflow question is the correct one:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/5498100

/dev/urandom only needs to be seeded with a small amount of entropy. this happens at bootup. after that its pseudo random number generator can generator unlimited amount of random numbers.

When people say a bad OS can fuck up /dev/urandom what do they mean by that?
I think i am being ultra paranoid here.
So if i want to generate a strong random seed it doesn't depend on say hardware?
I mean if i have old PC will it generate less random seed compared to new gen PC?
If i use electrum on linux vs windows which is more better to generate random seed?