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Quantum Random Numbers
tqft writes "What the world needs is more truly random sources of numbers. Researchers from Australian National University have found a brilliant way to make one: 'We do this by splitting a beam of light into two beams and then measuring the power in each beam. Because light is quantised, the light intensity in each beam fluctuates about the mean. Those fluctuations, due ultimately to the quantum vacuum, can be converted into a source of random numbers. Every number is randomly generated in real time and cannot be predicted beforehand.' So if you need some really random numbers, just use their generator service."
http://150.203.48.55/Matrix.php
503 error!
Until we can calculate the wave, its the wave not the particle that makes the pseudo quantum state.
A few months ago some guy generated random numbers firing lasers at diamonds; and now we've got quantum light. Maybe someone could explain how randomness varies in non-random ways...
That seems pretty random after a /. post
3mins and the site dies...
..feel free to use these...
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Random numbers are not useful in programs that need repeatable results
What a jip!
The quest to find random numbers is the quest to entangle our locality to ever more distantly related things in weirder and weirder ways... which, if you ask me, is far more interesting to think about.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Just keeps spitting out 503 ... >.>
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
- Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Does anything with the word 'quantum' gets published on slashdot?
Maybe they could pipe these random numbers to US cloud storage providers. Problem solved.
Randomness as a Service?
I don't know if out will work, but I know it certainly shouldn't.
In two words: MiM attack.
It is only generating the number 503, not that random.
If you guys keep entangling shit in there, the simulator will run out of memory.
Is that what you want?
This was done using radioactive decay to generate random numbers (i.e., something like counting geiger counter clicks), I believe first in the 1950's.
I also seem to remember that the first units weren't entirely random, due to dead times in the counters or something similar. Random in theory does not mean random in practice, and I am not sure I would trust a billion dollar deal relying on a one-time-pad generated by the ANU quantum random number generator, at least until it had been through a lot of testing.
int rand = 4; // Guaranteed to be random.
timing attacks against the universe?
Random numbers. You know what the series is. Are they still random? What if the only difference is whether you know the series or not. Does that change the randomness of the numbers?
My brain hurts.
They're not truly random unless inifinitely long numbers can be returned.
If 2^129929120912238723948732984732897439287^2938923982 is just as likely to be returned as 42, then maybe.
That's a fine idea, until you get sued because the "random" numbers you're providing turn out to be inadequately random.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
When I needed some very random numbers, I read the low bit of samples from my soundcard without a source connected. Connecting a mic may have better, to use ambient rather than electrical noise, but it worked well for me, and always had a "fair" average (but that was the only criteria I knew how to test). I'd be interested to hear what's wrong with doing it that way from those more knowledgeable than myself.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I read somewhere that twitter feeds were being used as seeds for random number generators. Found the page here http://pyevolve.sourceforge.net/wordpress/?p=631 This seems like a great approach. Could someone explain the benefits of this over the above, why it is needed and how can we be sure they are truly random.
Zener-noise at 5V6 or NPN transistor EB noise is already about half quantum effect noise. Just use that, plenty of recipes on the web. Cost is at a few USD/EUR for the raw generator and you can get it as an USB stick.
Examples:
http://www.cryogenius.com/hardware/isarng/
http://www.tonbandstimmen.de/evpmaker/random-bit-generator/index_e.htm
http://www.entropykey.co.uk/
Seems to me the quantum folks are getting a bit desperate to prove they actually are doing something worthwhile.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There's an app for that!
Just don't let Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization patent this, or we'll be paying royalties for turning on our lights.
The only random numbers this service is generating are 404 and 500.
I tell my dog to go get a toy. I've preassigned a numerical value between 1 & 10 to each of her toys. Whichever one she brings me, I cube the resulting number, and then divide by today's date (1 thru 31), and then floor the result. I get my yellow pages and turn to this page. I take the time of day as a percentage of 24-hour time (so 0700 would be 29.2%) and go that percentage down either the left or right column on that page, depending on the phase of the moon (left column for waxing, right column for waning.) Whichever phone number is there, I call. I then ask whoever picks up to think of a number.
"Build a Noise-Based Random Number Generator" by Terry Mayhugh which
appeared in the May 1981 BYTE Magazine (pages 452-456).
Based on quantum tunneling in a Zener diode
Arguably the Silvania 6D4 Tube used for random number generation in the 40's was based on quantum emmision statistics.
Creating a random number generator is even easier than designing useful circuits. Just ignore your noise margins. There is no need for quantum laser bullshit.
"There is no such thing as 'random number', for example, is 3 a random number?"
Rather than quote XKCD for the funnies, I thought I'd dip a little further back and go for Dilbert instead http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-10-25/
Some way to generate random numbers is really important, for certain applications. Intel's next generation of CPUs, based on Ivy Bridge and due out within a month, addresses that. The CPUs support a new instruction: RdRand. RdRand generates random numbers based on noise in the hardware. For almost all purposes, it should be adequate.
That seems about as random as you can get. :)
If not random, they at least have a minimal correlation with reality.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
What if it turns out that quantum randomness is only pseudo-random?
What if our entire reality is just a carrier wave for some other civilization's spread-spectrum communications network?
(Completely pointless speculation, I know. Still, I have to do something with my first coffee buzz of the morning.)
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
just take a poll and use these numbers, you'll never get the same answer twice, at not long as our current boob ( president) continues his erratic actions...
Meh. I use hotbits, random numbers based on nuclear decay.
I came across this site a long while back
http://www.idquantique.com/true-random-number-generator/quantis-usb-pcie-pci.html
They sell hardware that sends a single photon at a time. The photon's polarity is random. It hits a mirror/prism or something, and if it's one polarity, it goes to sensor A, if it's the other polarity, to goes to sensor B.
Truly random. About $2.1k for the PCIe card.
Instead of doing a complex setup, why not point a webcam at a green screen on the floor and break a black drinking glass against it. With a completely deterministic algorithm for making a hash based on the locations of glass shards on the green screen, you're going to get a random number. The challenge is for the hash function to have a more or less uniform distribution of values for all possible shard locations. It shouldn't be that difficult. You can always limit the number of shards you want to interpret to make it simpler, yet still random.
Check out the quantis rng
... or perhaps not defeated, but blithely thrown away.
When you are feeding everybody the same random number sequence (as this service appears to do), it doesn't matter even the slightest little bit how random the numbers are; with a little ingenuity they can still be 100% predictable in many practical situations.
It depends on little more than how fast you get the numbers, and whether you can process them before the next guy does.
In other words: this looks like a clever idea, but the implementation is totally useless for many real-world applications.
Don't observe the numbers.
I'm just sayin' ;}
Why not use a recaptcha type of random number generator with hundreds of individuals writing their favorite three digit number and this being used to make a random number
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
Yet from the wiki page:
It is covered under U.S. Patent 5,732,138, titled "Method for seeding a pseudo-random number generator with a cryptographic hash of a digitization of a chaotic system."
I don't believe it ever became a product... and was cumbersome to setup. Hard to justify a lava lamp display in a data center, and god forbid you need multiple sources in one DC say, on every machine)
One thing I worry about with devices like this is failure mode. if it can be made totally solid state, I would think it could be setup analogously to the way solid state relays are (with an emiter and detector in a small package).... but.... if it failed such that its numbers stopped really being random.... in what ways will it be able to detect this? (not just theoretically, but in real designs). Its great if you can get an error, but, it could be prolblematic if it just starts streaming highly repetitive numbers.
SGI had a production Lavarand setup in one of their internal Datacenters, in the building that is now the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I've heard a rumor that the Lava Lights are about .4 miles away from their old spot.