Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
..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
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
The site and its images randomly (appropriately enough) bobble between working and 503 at the moment. Not quite down, but taking heavy fire.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The term is 'gyp' as in 'gypsy' as in 'That dirty gypsy ripped me off again. What a gyp!'
Randomness as a Service?
I don't know if out will work, but I know it certainly shouldn't.
In two words: MiM attack.
In this case, it doesn't matter. Random number generation is in itself interesting and a very important part of computer science... or better said, the problem that with a finite state machine, like a computer, we cannot generate truly random numbers. Computers can generate pseudorandom numbers, but they are only random within the constraints set, are repeatable and will have a periodicity. Getting "true" random numbers only is possible from physical processes.
There have been several articles about random number generation on slashdot. On the top of my head, random numbers generated from a lava lamp, or from a CCD with a (disassembled?) smoke detector (which contains Americum, a radioactive element). Let's just say that random numbers are interesting unto themselves. That's they're generated by quantum fluctuations is just an added bonus.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
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.
Don't you mean what a cyst?
But does the decision whether to return a 503 or data use true randomness?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I reckon you used a loaded dice for that, you didn't specify otherwise.
The site and its images randomly (appropriately enough) bobble between working and 503 at the moment. Not quite down, but taking heavy fire.
Probably the cleaning lady using the left beam of light to read the instructions on the detergent bottle, thereby generating a whole string of identical 503 numbers.
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.
Indirectly. The choice of stories seems to be purely random.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Must be due to the "quantum vacuum"- which is about as real as the sub-ether explanation for waves that behave as particles.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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 guess the cleaning lady uses a quantum vacuum
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.
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.
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's incorrect. For true randomness, it need only be possible (and equally probable), that the prior number can be generated as a series of smaller numbers glued together, as that 424242424242..... (a string of equal length) would be generated.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Naturally, she abhors the vacuum.
If not random, they at least have a minimal correlation with reality.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Note that you can readily buy your own USB or PCI quantum number generator generator: http://www.idquantique.com/true-random-number-generator/products-overview.html
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.
Meh. I use hotbits, random numbers based on nuclear decay.
They need a networked version, USB and PCI don't play well in a modern virtualized datacenter.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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 $2.1k for the PCIe card.
And if you had ever actually tried any of them you'd know they all suck horribly. The Digi units are the best for most applications but they are still flaky and the folks at Digi have no clue about the needs of their enterprise customers (like rebooting any port on the 14 port unit often requires rebooting the whole thing).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
... or perhaps not defeated, but blithely thrown away.
When you are feeding everybody the same random number sequence (as this service appears to do), it doesn't matter even the slightest little bit how random the numbers are; with a little ingenuity they can still be 100% predictable in many practical situations.
It depends on little more than how fast you get the numbers, and whether you can process them before the next guy does.
In other words: this looks like a clever idea, but the implementation is totally useless for many real-world applications.
I'm just sayin' ;}
Why not use a recaptcha type of random number generator with hundreds of individuals writing their favorite three digit number and this being used to make a random number
O this learning! What a thing it is - William Shakespeare
They need a networked version, USB and PCI don't play well in a modern virtualized datacenter.
It's what, a 25-line perl script to hook up a character device to ZeroMQ?
(hurry, somebody release it before the patent is filed!)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That would be Formula 409, not 503.