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Domain: aw-el.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to aw-el.com.

Comments · 8

  1. Re:Any USB device by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Entropy Problems For Linux In the Cloud

    Like the ones you find by searching google "usb random number generator"?

    http://www.protego.se/
    http://www.westphal-electronic.de/zranusbe.htm
    http://random.com.hr/products/random/hg324.html
    http://atom_age.tripod.com/
    http://www.aw-el.com/ ...

  2. What's so expensive? by sakusha · · Score: 2, Interesting · on When Is It Random Enough?

    I don't understand why people think it's so expensive to make a circuit that produces truly random numbers. Radioactive decay is the absolute gold standard of randomness. I remember seeing a project in someplace like Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar that showed how to use a small radioactive source as a randomness generator, IIRC the total cost was about $25. You can buy commercial radioactive random generators for about $150, for example the RM-60 from:
    http://www.aw-el.com/
    If any hardware manufacturer wanted to incorporate this sort of feature into a chip, it would probably cost about $5 in mass quantities. But the general PC market hasn't demanded this level of true randomness.

  3. Radioactive RNG by Detritus · · Score: 1 · on Feds Hack Wireless Network in 3 Minutes

    You can build a good RNG from a cheap Geiger counter and a smoke detector (radioactive source). I did this with an old laptop computer. It wasn't fast, but it produced more than enough random bits for keys and one-time pads.

  4. Re:Good ole' radiation by Detritus · · Score: 1 · on LavaRnd: A Open Source Project for Truly Random Numbers

    I've used this technique in a random number generator. Smoke detectors are a cheap and available source of radioactive material. Aware Electronics sells relatively inexpensive Geiger counters that have PC interfaces. Add a small program to measure times in between radioactive decays. It t0 is greater than t1, generate a 1. if t0 is less than t1, generate a 0. Repeat forever.

  5. Geiger counter! by ke4roh · · Score: 2, Informative · on Rube-Goldberg Type Random Number Generators?
    What? This story's been up 3 days and no mention of a geiger counter? Better yet, rather than buying your own geiger counter to watch your own nuclear material decay, how about accessing some random numbers over the internet? HotBits (which has been mentioned) will let you do just that.

    Terry Ritter offers us "Random Number Machines: A Literature Survey" which discusses random numbers from noise and other sources. Well worth a look.

    Ritter expounds on Geiger counters:

    Nisley, E. 1990. BASIC Radioactive Randoms. Circuit Cellar Ink. April/May. 58-68.

    "While pseudo-random (pronounced "fake random") numbers may be OK for computer science types, Real Engineers get Real Random Numbers by timing nuclear disintegrations with a Geiger-Muller detector." "A few months ago I saw the RM-60 Micro Roentgen Radiation Monitor from Aware Electronics. It is a Geiger-Muller tube that connects to a PC's parallel or serial port, with the circuitry drawing power from a single interface pin."

    Now they also offer canned software - a random number generator based on radioactive decay.

  6. Geiger counter! by ke4roh · · Score: 2, Informative · on Rube-Goldberg Type Random Number Generators?
    What? This story's been up 3 days and no mention of a geiger counter? Better yet, rather than buying your own geiger counter to watch your own nuclear material decay, how about accessing some random numbers over the internet? HotBits (which has been mentioned) will let you do just that.

    Terry Ritter offers us "Random Number Machines: A Literature Survey" which discusses random numbers from noise and other sources. Well worth a look.

    Ritter expounds on Geiger counters:

    Nisley, E. 1990. BASIC Radioactive Randoms. Circuit Cellar Ink. April/May. 58-68.

    "While pseudo-random (pronounced "fake random") numbers may be OK for computer science types, Real Engineers get Real Random Numbers by timing nuclear disintegrations with a Geiger-Muller detector." "A few months ago I saw the RM-60 Micro Roentgen Radiation Monitor from Aware Electronics. It is a Geiger-Muller tube that connects to a PC's parallel or serial port, with the circuitry drawing power from a single interface pin."

    Now they also offer canned software - a random number generator based on radioactive decay.

  7. Easy to Build by Detritus · · Score: 2 · on Radioactive Random Number Generator

    I built one of these with an Aware Electronics RM-60 radiation monitor, a radiation source extracted from a cheap ionization smoke detector and a small program to collect the bits. The data rate isn't high but it is fine for generating keys and one-time-pads. The RM-60 is cheap, small, and is powered by the voltage on the RS-232 interface.

  8. Re:Some thoughts on encryption by Detritus · · Score: 1 · on When Pretty Good Privacy Isn't Good Enough
    You can get a geiger counter with a PC interface for $150 at Aware Electronics. A radiation source can be obtained by disassembling a $10 ionization smoke detector.

    With a little bit of software, you have genuine random numbers.

    I don't think OTPs are as impractical as some people say. I can put 1.44 MB of random numbers on a floppy disk and hand deliver it or send it via registered mail to my correspondent. That will encrypt a lot of email. The U.S. Government routinely uses registered mail for classified documents and keying material.