On Thu, 12 Sep 2013 08:47:16 +1000 (EST) Dave Horsfall <d...@horsfall.org> wrote: > Another whacky idea... > > Given that there is One True Source of randomness to wit > radioactive emission, has anyone considered playing with old smoke > detectors?
People have experimented with all sorts of stuff, and you can make any of hundreds of methods from cameras+lava lamp+hash function to sound cards to radioactive sources work if you have budget and time. The issue is not finding ways to generate entropy. The issue is that you need something that's cheap and ubiquitous. User endpoints like cell phones have users to help them generate entropy, but the world's routers, servers, etc. do not have good sources, especially at first boot time, and for customer NAT boxes and the like the price points are vicious. The attraction of methods that use nothing but a handful of transistors is that they can be fabricated on chip and thus have nearly zero marginal cost. The huge disadvantage is that if your opponent can convince chip manufacturers to introduce small changes into their design, you're in trouble. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger pe...@piermont.com _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
