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LavaRnd: A Open Source Project for Truly Random Numbers
Phil Windley writes "Truly random numbers are crucial to good encryption.
Most people have heard of Silicon Graphic's use of Lava Lamps to generate random numbers. There were some problems: it required special SGI hardware and software along with six lava lamps, and the solution wasn't portable. But the biggest drawback was that SGI patented the idea so it wasn't freely available. Now, some of the scientists behind the SGI random number system have create LavaRnd, an open source project for creating truly random numbers using inexpensive cameras, open source code, and inexpensive hardware. The system uses a saturated CCD in a light-tight can as a chaotic source to produce the seed. Software processes the result into truly random numbers in a variety of formats. The result is a random number that is crytographically sound, ranking at the top of its class in the NIST 800-22 Billion bit test. Its even portable, so the truly paranoid can take it with them when they travel."
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Talk about random...
Anyway, my idea for an open source number generator is to have people on slashdot post the first number that comes to mind in this thread. I don't know if it could get more random.... (patent pending)
NMG
"But, sir, I need this lava lamp for my cubicle! It's required for encrypting our company's secrets. I also need the black light, for, uh... stopping pop-ups."
... "truly random numbers in a variety of formats" ...
Think about that for a second.
Site's already /.'ed.
You can nab the code off sourceforge though:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lavarnd
That being said, could you not measure the exact voltage on a CPU, or the ambient temperature to several decimals, or other environmental conditions, then use that as a base?
***
Radio Shack. You've got questions...we've got blank stares(TM).
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various SGI lava lamps, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a SGI lava lamp that has run faster than its 1960s counterpart,despite the SGI lamp's smaller viscosity. My lamp with runs faster than this SGI lamp at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the SGI LavaRnd is a "superior" machine.
SGI addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a SGI over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
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start with radioactive material...
... hi bingo
A Open Source Project for Truly Random Numbers
cause random n's to be dropped from sentences ?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Its even portable, so the truly paranoid can take it with them when they travel.
that if one were truly paranoid they really travel in this day and age?
audio circuits often use diode junctions in reverse-breakdown mode as a source of "white noise". couldn't we computer folks do the same? seems a similar idea to the the dark CCD technique.
I'm not a math guy. At all.
So forgive me if this is dumb or not the right idea.
But why not just use a sensitive microphone listening to the ambience in a room to "seed" some sort of algorithm?
For generating random numbers: A quarter in my pocket and a lot of free time.
I had a friend that 5 or 6 years ago used the "white noise" from his SB 16 to generate random numbers. Wouldn't this be much more portable than a lava lamp? -Matt
Unless the random-number generator is built outside of our Universe, it can't generate truly random numbers. Only pseudo-random ones. As it stands, there will always be something influencing the result. Fortunately for us, pseudo-random numbers are impossible to differentiate from random ones and are random enough to serve our purposes anyway.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
I just used LavaRnd's Lotto Number Generator with default values and it returned:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
That's the same combination I use on my luggage!
going back to the original idea, how cool would it be to have a lava lamp inside the case, maybe helping out all those heatsinks by converting heat into lava-moving power...with a window so you can see it as it generated all the random numbers you needed.
"Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin."
--John von Neumann
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Nothing is truly random about a lava lamp, or even the fractals on a leaf. "Randomness" as we understand it has always been about complex order and large numbers. Meaning, it's too complex for us to see the pattern and the statistical possibility of numbers occuring in a measurable pattern over time is extremely low.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The Apple ][ computers used the pause between keystrokes, measured much more precisely than necessary and disregarding all but the last 8 bits, as an attempt at an analog random number seed for their psuedorandom number generator. Very simple and effective and I haven't seen many implementations of better systems around. One side effect was that if you had a program which ran off the boot disk with no keystrokes, it would do the same thing every time, no matter how improbable that was...
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
>so the truly paranoid can take it with them when they travel."
pfftt, like there is anyone on Slashdot that is paranoid.
I've always wondered if the double-slit experiment, in a particle mode, would be a good way to generate random numbers.
The phenomena (for those unfamilar with it) is putting two closely-spaced slits in a piece of paper and then shining a light through it. You end up with a spreading fringe of light and dark patterns, as the light waves coming through the slits interfere with each other.
Where it gets spooky is when you drop the light source down to where it emits photons one at a time -- they *still* interfere with each other, even though there aren't any other photons present at any given point to interfere with.
Anyway, I seem to recall that the place where each photon ends up is random. So why not put a low-power, stream-of-single-photons light source on one side of the double-slit, and a pair of sensors on the other side? Label one sensor "0" and the other "1" and interpret the strings as binary numbers. Convert (and optionally send them through a bit blender) and you're done.
I'd think this could be manufactured in a small chip-like package, and made a standard motherboard component.
Has anyone investigated this approach? If so, I'd be curious to hear what their results were (and if it turns out not to be as random as one would like).
Answer: none of them were random; all of them chosen by you off the top of your head. There are important mathematical differences between these two cases. What you have given is sets of "arbitrary" numbers, rather than "random" numbers.
Now, if you'd asked which of the sets could be generated randomly, then the answer is all of them, given a generator function with the correct output range.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
"The Antaur also ships with Via's "Padlock" feature, a random-number generator that actually produces "true" random numbers by measuring random components of the thermal energy produced by the chip, according to its designer, Glenn Henry. RNG generators can be used to develop true randomized cryptographic keys."
the truly paranoid can take it with them when they travel.
Oh, that just what you'd want us to do isn't it???
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
The original motivation for random number generators was simulation. One of the early mainframes, and I am afraid I forget which one, included a true random number generator. It was an unexpected disaster, totally unusable for simulation and other then-state-of-the-art users of random numbers. They were "too random".
It turns out that for an experiment to be useful it need to be repeatable. Thus, it was critical that users be able to repeat the sequence of "random" numbers. Thus the reason why all random number mechanisms permit you to set the seed... otherwise they could just use a sufficiently random seed and life would be good.
Another aspect of random number is that they must not only be "random", but they need to have a well defined distribution over the range of possible values. You might assume it is desirable to have a linear distribution, which IS useful in some settings, but other distributions ("bell curve", and exponential come to mind) are also extremely useful.
IF one has a real need for truly random numbers, the source for those number does need to perform to a certain distribution over the range of possible values. And it can not be used to the exclusion of the existing techniques which have been extremely useful in their intended problem domains. This is really just another case of a good solution in one problem domain being used in another without its underlying foundation being examined for applicability to that new problem domain.
Nearly every PC also has a sound interface that could also be used as a rich source of random seed bits. You don't even need a microphone; just crank up the gain and digitize the analog noise in the microphone preamp.
As far as I know, a run of numbers has never won the lottery, so this is your chance. The run is more likely to come up, since one hasn't already, in all this time.
oh, wait...
When I was in grad school (for mathematics), I took a course on probability. On the first day, the Prof gave an assigment for half the class to create a list of 100 random numbers using dice (actually one die). The other half of the class was to create the same list (numbers between 1 and 6), but without using any dice. The Prof then put all the pages in a pile, and was able to perfectly separate the pile based on which method was used to create the page with only a quick glance at each page.
We later learned that he was able to separate them by looking at runs of numbers. For a list of 100 uniformly distributed numbers (between 1 and 6), there is a very high probability (90% or greater) that there will be a consecutive run where the same number occurs 5 or 6 times in a row. But the people that manually created their list will almost never add such a run, because it doesn't seem "random" enough.
What is really "random" is a very hard question that has occupied many brilliant people over the last century.