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I am changing the password of a truecrypt file container. This takes around 1 minute. Why?

time truecrypt --text --change /tmp/user1.tc --keyfiles= --new-keyfiles= --password=known --new-password=known --random-source=/dev/null"

If I use strace I see that it basically does not do anything: it simply reads lots of random data from /dev/urandom (even if i specified /dev/null as random source) and finally changes the password:

open("/dev/urandom", O_RDONLY)          = 6
read(6, "\36&{\351\212\212\343\202\34\313\242\312I\326\235\245\224\300\354O)\270Q\200 \201J\227\224\311_\212\367"..., 640) = 640
close(6)                                = 0
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Truecrypt is generating a new key to be associated with the new passphrase. In order to achice the random nature to generate a secure key, truecrypt samples many different sources over a little while(1min). It's necessary for a new secure key. Using /dev/null is not recomended! Hope this clears it up.

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In fact, using /dev/null as a source for anything will not work, because the null device is only a "sink"; you can't read anything from it. The opposite would be /dev/zero, which is read-only and outputs null bytes... but really, using that as a "random number" source is asking to be shot. – grawity May 31 '10 at 18:26
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