[Tim Peters] >> If you want /true/ randomness, you can buy a certified hardware random >> number generator, based on non-deterministic physical processes (like >> timing radioactive decay, or measuring thermal noise).
[Terry Carroll] > Why buy when you can borrow?: Speed and capacity, for two things ;-) As the HotBits page says, their method can't create more than about 100 bytes per second. So even if they were willing (which they aren't) to satisfy a request for 1000000 random bytes (as Dick used in one of his programs), it would take close to 3 hours to get them. Worse, many applications consume 1000s of times more than a measly million random bytes. > def truerandom(n): > """ > truerandom(n) --> str > > Return a string of n truly random bytes. > > see: > http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ > http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/generate.html > > """ > > import urllib > _url = "http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Hotbits?nbytes=%s&fmt=bin"; % n > return urllib.urlopen(_url).read() Note that a reasonable use for this service is to request a "small" number of random bytes to /seed/ a fast deterministic generator. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
