Random numbers

[Michael Wittman]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2002 at 03:18:23AM -0700, der.hans wrote:
> Am 28. Mar, 2002 schwätzte John (EBo) David so:
> 
> > there was a scientific amirican artical about 10 years ago on building a
> > chaos white noise random generator usinging a diode operated in it's
> > unstable region and sampled...  They got the thing to sit there and
> > wonder all over the place.  Appearently the dude that made it was able
> > to get the built for just a couple of dollars at radio shack.  You would
> > likely be able to build it with an old junk radio or TV ;-)
> 
> So why don't we have these for computers? Do they interfere with other
> stuff? Does the rest of the computer interfere with them? Are they too slow
> or not really random with today's computing capabilities and speeds?

Intel is integrating these (or something similar) into some of their
chipsets:

     http://developer.intel.com/design/security/rng/rng.htm

There's a Linux driver too:
      http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0001.3/att-0037/01-rng.c

-Mike