This proposes the addition of a user-addressable function that can be used to fill the
portion of an ArrayBuffer
associated with a TypedArray
with cryptographically secure pseudo-random number values.
Portions of this proposal are derived from the Web Cryptography API
Stage: 1
Champion: Ron Buckton (@rbuckton)
For detailed status of this proposal see TODO, below.
One of the key issues for https://github.com/tc39/proposal-uuid is the lack of a "source of truth" for cryptographically secure pseudo-random numbers within the ECMAScript language. While hosts such as browsers and NodeJS provide implementations of CSPRNGs (Cryptographically Secure Pseudo-Random Number Generators), the ECMAScript language itself has no mechanism for supplying a CSPRNG that can be used by proposed APIs such as UUID.
TypedArray
prototype.crypto
global namespace for cryptography-related APIs in ECMA-262, we should ensure that the Web cryptography APIs could be layered on top.
crypto.getRandomValues
crypto.randomFillSync
We are still investigating the API surface area for this proposal. The intended API would be a user-addressable function that when called executes the FillRandomValues abstract operation, below.
The Stage 0 API proposal exposed this as a static ArrayBuffer.fillRandom
method, although we are continuing to investigate this space.
When abstract operation FillRandomValues is called with argument view, the following steps are taken:
"Int8Array"
, "Uint8Array"
, "Uint8ClampedArray"
, "Int16Array"
, "Uint16Array"
, "Int32Array"
, "Uint32Array"
, "BigInt64Array"
, or "BigUint64Array"
, throw a TypeError exception.Note
Implementations should generate cryptographically secure random values using well-established cryptographic pseudo-random number generators seeded with high-quality entropy, such as from an operating-system entropy source (e.g., "/dev/urandom"). This specification provides no lower-bound on the information theoretic entropy present in cryptographically secure random values, but implementations should make a best effort to provide as much entropy as practicable.Note
This interface defines a synchronous method for obtaining cryptographically secure random values. While some devices and implementations may support truly random cryptographic number generators or provide interfaces that block when there is insufficient entropy, implementations are discouraged from using these sources when implementing getRandomValues, both for performance and to avoid depleting the system of entropy. Instead, these sources should be used to seed a cryptographic pseudo-random number generator that can then return suitable values efficiently.
The following is a high-level list of tasks to progress through each stage of the TC39 proposal process: