Re: random seed generation without user interaction?

[Arnold G. Reinhold]

At 3:15 AM -0500 6/6/2000, John Kelsey wrote:
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>At 07:08 PM 6/5/00 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>So I'm curious about what all methods do folks currently use (on NT
>>and unix)  to generate a random seed in the case where user
>>interaction (e.g. the ol'  mouse pointer waving or keyboard tapping
>>approaches) isn't a viable option? 
>
>If the machine has a microphone, you can get some unpredictable bits
>from internal noise in the circuit, and also from real noise in the
>room the computer's in.  There's probably a tiny bit of entropy
>available even in the worst case imaginable from network packet
>arrival times, if you can get them.

I have a page listing inexpensive noise sources that can be use with 
a computer's sound input port:
http://world.std.com/~reinhold/truenoise.html

Arnold Reinhold