> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Ingo Klöcker <kloec...@kde.org> > To: gnupg-users@gnupg.org > Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:09:38 +0100 > Subject: Re: Series of minor questions about OpenPGP 5 > On Wednesday 28 January 2009, Robert J. Hansen wrote: > > Peter Thomas wrote: > > > I've read about special hardware devices that (claim to) give true > > > random numbers, some based on thermodynamics some even on quantum > > > mechanics. > > > > True randomness exists in nature, but so far we're unable to detect > > it. (Seriously.) > > > > Imagine you have a Geiger counter and a radioactive sample. Over > > each time frame, the Geiger counter reports how many decays it > > measures. That number becomes your random value. So far, so random, > > right? > > > > But a Geiger counter has a reset time. Once it clicks, there's a > > small time window in which it's unable to detect new decay events. > > This has the effect of introducing a bias into your random number > > generator: some decay events will be transformed into non-events. > > > > There are some tricks of physics and mathematics you can use to get > > very high quality values out of this kind of radioisotope setup, but > > the basic problem remains: even when measuring a totally > > nondeterministic event, determinism in the detection mechanism will > > undercut you. You can get really, really close to truly random > > numbers, but you can't get there. > > See http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ for a random number generator using > radioactive decay.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: RIPEMD160 That still suffers from Robert's point about the deterministic effect of resetting the detector. - --Avi -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) - GPGshell v3.71 iEYEAREDAAYFAkmAwVAACgkQy6A/RnheoimFngCeJP2aTAdfOKlEW2feXTIPK692 +xsAnA5IXUHLTGHdrbl8BvtB2CyVmTRq =l4U9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---- en:User:Avraham pub 1024D/785EA229 3/6/2007 Avi (Wikipedia-related) <aviw...@gmail.com> Primary key fingerprint: D233 20E7 0697 C3BC 4445 7D45 CBA0 3F46 785E A229
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