On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 12:44 AM, Tim Peters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [Alec Henriksen] > > How trustworthy is the "randomness" generated by the random module? > > Python uses the Mersenne Twister algorithm for generating > pseudo-random numbers, and that's one of the highest-quality methods > known. I've talked with some people about random number generation, and how you can tell if it's random. For 10 numbers, is 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 random? You really don't know, because it's random! It probably is. Even if the set before and after are all the same, it still could be - that's the beauty of randomness, is sometimes you can get what looks like patterns. Of course, if you're working with data encryption, this is simply not a very reliable way to do things. One of the most "random" ways (of course if you were able to /exactly/ duplicate the circumstances, you'd still get the same result. However it's much more difficult to duplicate the circumstances with this method.) I've seen to generate a number is getting sound input from the mic jack when there's no mic attached, and treating it like string data, then using that as your key. Hooray for Random! -Wayne
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