Random numbers

[John (EBo) David]

"der.hans" wrote:
> 
> Am 29. Mar, 2002 schwätzte Monika so:
> 
> > As it was mentioned, for most applications  psudo-random numbers are enough
> > (i.e. for games). But as cryptographic protocols are becoming more common,
> > there will soon be a need for real random numbers that can be used as session
> > keys or just random numbers for authentication, encryption and secret exchange
> > protocols.
> 
> That's what I'm thinking about. As we move to needing larger and larger keys
> we'll have more need for lots of random data. We're gonna need more and
> we'll need it faster.
> 
> I don't want 'em based on any of my physical or mental characteristics.

here would be an interesting project...  build one of them chaos
generators and hook it up to Ye' Ol' game port whichever sensoe had the
8 bit AD converter.  Then you simply collect as much random number data
as you want...  Another variant would simply amplyfy that signal and
pipe it into the mic. input of the sound card.  The chaos generator
should be buildable for under $10 $30 if you have to buy a new sound
card ;-)

The real problem is analazing the data to make sure that it is REALLY
random and does not have any easily recognisable structure to it.  There
are entire books written on how to do this, and I only know about 4 or 5
of the techniques...

  EBo --