True Random Number Generator Goes Online

amigoro writes "A 'true' random number generator that relies on the unpredictable quantum process of photon emission has gone online providing academic and scientific community access to true random numbers free of charge."

Comments

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

..BZT, qvq nalbar frr gung gb ertvfgre lbh unir
gb fbyir n zngu ceboyrz yvxr:

    qrevingvir bs (5*fva 3k +6pbf(-cv/2))

Avpr!

Urer vf n qverpg yvax gb gur trarengbe, lbh pna
qbjaybnq gur pyvrag sebz urer nf jryy:

uggc://enaqbz.veo.ue/

DEnaq Pbzznaq-yvar Hgvyvgl [i0.2, 2007-07-17]
Abgr 1: Pbzcvyrf haqre Ivfhny Fghqvb naq t++.
Abgr 2: Jvaqbjf rkrphgnoyr vapyhqrq.
Abgr 3: TAH Yvahk rkrphgnoyr vapyhqrq.

Re:Wow!

[Xiph1980]

Too bad that's only ROT13:
Not really the hardest of encryptions to crack.

..OMG, did anyone see that to register you have
to solve a math problem like:

derivative of (5*sin 3x +6cos(-pi/2))

Nice!

Here is a direct link to the generator, you can
download the client from here as well:

http://random.irb.hr/

QRand Command-line Utility [v0.2, 2007-07-17]
Note 1: Compiles under Visual Studio and g++.
Note 2: Windows executable included.
Note 3: GNU Linux executable included.

Re:Wow!

[MillionthMonkey]

..OMG, did anyone see that to register you have to solve a math problem like:

derivative of (5*sin 3x +6cos(-pi/2))

7h15 15 345y. 6 * (05(-p1/2) = z3r0), 50 7h3 4n5w3r 15 ju57 15 * (05(3x).

|\/|y m07h3r (0u|d h4v3 d1ff3r3n71473d 7h47.

Re:Wow!

[Xiph1980]

Your mother a math teacher or a PhD?
My mother doesn't even know what a sine is, let alone solve that to 15*cos(3x)

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad that's only ROT13: Not really the hardest of encryptions to crack.

Yeah, that's why I always apply it twice for extra security.

Re:Wow!

[AmiAthena]

I'm sure my mom would be proud if I told her that I'm lost on the math, but I read that in one pass with no problem. *sigh*

455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2

[ferrellcat]

Hey! It works!

Re:455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2

[Filter]

Step 1: 455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Profit!!!

Re:455FE10422CA29C4933F95052B792AB2

[ari_j]

Thanks! Now, to put it to good use:

uint128_t rand() {
/* This number is guaranteed to be random. See http://random.irb.hr/ for details. */
return 0x455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2;
}

Wait...

[Icarus1919]

Why do I keep getting 42?

Re:Wait...

[theantipop]

I don't know, but that's pretty improbable.

Re:Wait...

[Puff of Logic]

I don't know, but that's pretty improbable. Nonsense. Million-to-one chances occur nine times out of ten!

Re:Wait...

[Lord Ender]

Actually, a random number generator isn't really random unless it is possible for it to generate the number 42 a thousand times in a row...

Re:Wait...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

75% of all pie charts resemble Pac-Man.

Re:Wait...

[AchiIIe]

Bah, you must be a mathematician.
If you put a monkey in front of a typewriter and he types on it for an infinite amount of time, he'll eventually type all of Shakespeare's work.

It's called the Infinite monkey theorem

Ignoring punctuation, spacing, and capitalization, a monkey typing letters uniformly at random has one chance in 26 of correctly typing the first letter of Hamlet. It has one chance in 676 (26 times 26) of typing the first two letters. Because the probability shrinks exponentially, at 20 letters it already has only one chance in 26^20 = 19,928,148,895,209,409,152,340,197,376, roughly equivalent to the probability of buying 4 lottery tickets consecutively and winning the jackpot each time. In the case of the entire text of Hamlet, the probabilities are so vanishingly small they can barely be conceived in human terms. The text of Hamlet, even stripped of punctuation, contains well over 130,000 letters which would lead to a probability of one in 3.4×10^183946.

For comparison purposes, there are only about 10^79 atoms in the observable universe and only 4.3 x 10^17 seconds have elapsed since the Big Bang. Even if the universe were filled with monkeys typing for all time, their total probability to produce a single instance of Hamlet would still be less than one chance in 10183800. As Kittel and Kroemer put it, "The probability of Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event...", and the statement that the monkeys must eventually succeed "gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers." This is from their textbook on thermodynamics, the field whose statistical foundations motivated the first known expositions of typing monkeys

Re:Wait...

[snickkers]

The closest we'll get to proof that Shakespeare wasn't a monkey.

Re:Wait...

[Bluesman]

>my cat just traipsed on my keyboard and typed "dsafhhrnvcdbqwtrwqerwe897509k;ln b,.cnjhcvdsytwejbhd"

I've read that one, it sucked. The butler did it and they catch him in the end.

Your cat should have typed Hamlet.

lava lamps at SGI

[TheGratefulNet]

when I think of random numbers, I can't help but remember the 'fishbowl' that had at SGI (mtn view) where an indycam was photo'ing some lavalamps and creating random seeds based on those images.

ah, SGI....

Re:lava lamps at SGI

[Richard W.M. Jones]

That would be Lavarand from, oh, just 10 years ago.

Rich

random.org ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hasn't random.org done this for a while already? Perhaps they don't have academic backing, but I do believe they use numbers generated by atomic decay.

Re:random.org ?

[stinerman]

Indeed. First page:

RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs. ...

The service has been operating since 1998 and was built and is being maintained by Mads Haahr who is a Lecturer in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin in Ireland.

Re:random.org ?

[lawpoop]

I do believe they use numbers generated by atomic decay. The site claims that

The randomness comes from atmospheric noise... I wonder, how could you know that their numbers are truly random, as they claim?

Re:random.org ?

[psu_whammy]

You could, say, read up on the statistics they give you. The site has all sorts of fun info on exactly how their RNG works, and daily stats on the randomness of the numbers presented.

Re:random.org ?

[AutumnLeaf]

I wonder, how could you know that their numbers are truly random, as they claim?

You can never know that. You can test "properties of randomness" and conclude "it looks random." But you have no way of knowing if that hopefully random sequence cross-correlates to a non-random sequence you haven't found, but that passes all of the tests.

On the other hand, there is no randomness like quantum randomness. So if you believe their bit-stream faithfully represents the source, then in this case you can feel pretty good about it.

Don't misunderstand

[Icarus1919]

True random number generators have been around in hardware form for a while based on a number of different processes, not quantum only. But this is being offered to the community at large, who may not have the means to procure or pay for a hardware solution.

Re:Don't misunderstand

[TheRaven64]

Don't Via C3 chips have a hardware random number generator, that uses quantum-level fluctuations in the chip (i.e. the kind of noise that most of the rest of the chip is specifically designed to try to avoid) to produce noise as output? Since these cost under $100, I can't see a researcher not being able to afford one. You obviously can't use this service for cryptography, since relying on someone else for your entropy is just asking for trouble.

quantum random number generators

[Wise Dragon]

This is neat but there have been other quantum random number generators online for years. This one by id Quantique springs to mind... I'm not sure what this new service provides that others don't. If you REALLY want secure random numbers you should buy a QRNG PCI card and make them yourself so you're the only one with a copy.

Re:quantum random number generators

[Rakishi]

You probably don't want to do that for a computer simulation running at a few ghz thou. That's what grad students are for.

Other sources of true random numbers

[i_like_spam]

Atmospheric noise
Lava lamps
Radioactive decay
Entropy

An external random number generator?

[solevita]

Call me paranoid, but I think I'd rather use a local pseudo random number generator than an external true random generator. My security concerns associated with using a local pseudo random number generator are outweighed by my privacy concerns of contacting a third party every time I want to establish a SSH connection or use my credit card online.

Great for research though, of course.

Finally an improved software estimate methodology

[JurassicPizza]

I've been waiting on this for a long time.

close

[geekoid]

"Random" is a word used when an event has too many unknowns to reasonably no the outcome.

To use a very simple random event: Flipping a coin.

If you know all the variables, you will know what the outcome will be.
How heavy is the coin? what side is up at the moment of the flip? whats the air density? how hard was it flipped? etc. . .

Re:Here's what I do

[slickwillie]

I just checksum my Windows registry.

It's random enough for my purposes.

Web 2.0? monkeys!!

[myowntrueself]

As Kittel and Kroemer put it, "The probability of Hamlet is therefore zero in any operational sense of an event...", and the statement that the monkeys must eventually succeed "gives a misleading conclusion about very, very large numbers."

So in other words there really is *no* hope that web 2.0 will actually produce anything truly outstanding?

Re:Captchas require calculus

[E 99]

Look at the signup page. You not only need to prove that you are a human but also that you have elementary knowledge of calculus.

I propose adding this to the /. signup process.

Re:wonky definition of pseudo-random

[Baron von Leezard]

I'm not concerned that it's not pseudo-random. My point is that's not how any modern pseudo-random number generators actually work. Maybe during WWII, but not today. The common PRNG techniques are:

1. linear congruential generators
   
2. lagged Fibonacci generators
   
3. linear feedback shift registers
   
4. generalised feedback shift registers
   
5. Mersenne twister
   
6. Fortuna (if you need one that's cryptographically secure)
   
7. Blum Blum Shub (likewise)
   

These are all pure mathematical algorithms. Nowhere in any of these is there any sort of pre-generated random lookup tables. (Unless you count the S-boxes used in some block ciphers with Fortuna.) Pre-generated "random" lookup tables only hide poor randomness in the generation process and don't actually improve the situation cryptographically at all; I suspect that for most other applications there would be problems as well. If your generated numbers don't cover the entire domain space uniformly, then they still won't no matter how many lookup tables you use to transform them.

According to the article, people are sitting around rolling dice to generate random number sequences. Really? REALLY?!? Who wrote this article?

[BvL]