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From: Mike Raiford
Subject: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 14:59:37
Message: <496266a9$1@news.povray.org>
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/

-- 
~Mike


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 16:02:56
Message: <49627580$1@news.povray.org>
Mike Raiford wrote:
> http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/

I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava lamps, 
and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random streams. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.


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From: Orchid XP v8
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 16:13:58
Message: <49627816$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:
> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava 
> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random 
> streams. :-)

Depends on how unbreakable you believe SHA-1 to be. (Assuming you wanted 
to use the random data for cryptographic purposes anyway. But then, 
collectin random data from a public source is probably a dumb idea in 
that case...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 17:09:06
Message: <49628502$1@news.povray.org>
Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava 
>> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random 
>> streams. :-)
> 
> Depends on how unbreakable you believe SHA-1 to be. 

You could certainly take (say) one byte or one bit from the end of the hash. 
And breaking SHA-1 still isn't going to give you any non-random results, 
unless you find correlations within different parts of the outputs of SHA-1, 
rather than the usual search which is correlations between inputs and outputs.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.


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From: Mueen Nawaz
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 22:00:30
Message: <4962c94e$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:
> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava
> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random
> streams. :-)

	Yes, but at what *rate* can you produce random numbers with that method?

-- 
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 5 Jan 2009 22:11:13
Message: <4962cbd1$1@news.povray.org>
Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava
>> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random
>> streams. :-)
> 
> 	Yes, but at what *rate* can you produce random numbers with that method?

It is easily parallelizable. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.


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From: Mike Raiford
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 6 Jan 2009 08:09:34
Message: <4963580e$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:
> Mike Raiford wrote:
>> http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/
> 
> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava 
> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random 
> streams. :-)
> 

I think beta decay is probably a bit more random. After all, there is 
that whole uncertainty thing .. :)

-- 
~Mike


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 6 Jan 2009 13:18:30
Message: <4963a076$1@news.povray.org>
Mike Raiford wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Mike Raiford wrote:
>>> http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/
>>
>> I liked better the one that had a camera pointed at half a dozen lava 
>> lamps, and took the sha-1 of the webcam's output to generate random 
>> streams. :-)
>>
> 
> I think beta decay is probably a bit more random.

Hard to say.  It's certainly less amusing to watch, and certainly harder to 
explain to a layman. :-)

 > After all, there is that whole uncertainty thing .. :)

What do you think drives the randomness of lava lamps? Pixies?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.


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From: Mike Raiford
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 6 Jan 2009 13:29:07
Message: <4963a2f3$1@news.povray.org>
Darren New wrote:

> 
> What do you think drives the randomness of lava lamps? Pixies?
> 

Fluid Dynamics? Heat?

Oh, hell, just take a shot of the back of the lens cap every so often 
(at high ISO), You'll get plenty of quantum randomness there. Or, 
amplify an idle input from the sound card to a great extent. More 
randomness, there, or a radio tuner tuned to a non-station, and use the 
universe as your source of randomness.  Plenty of sources. :)

-- 
~Mike


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From: Darren New
Subject: Re: REAL random numbers :D
Date: 6 Jan 2009 13:54:42
Message: <4963a8f2$1@news.povray.org>
Mike Raiford wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
> 
>>
>> What do you think drives the randomness of lava lamps? Pixies?
>>
> 
> Fluid Dynamics? Heat?

And ... those in turn are caused by ... ?

Granted, individual atom decay is less likely to exhibit statistical 
groupings. And you rarely have your radioactive source get too cold to be 
random. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Why is there a chainsaw in DOOM?
   There aren't any trees on Mars.


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