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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:11 ADT
bram (bram@gawth.com)
Tue, 7 Jul 1998 14:05:20 -0700 (PDT)
Wow, quite a bit of discussion going on here :)
I think all this talk underscores that random number generation is a very
hard thing to do, and that more work needs to be done on it. A 128-bit key
isn't very secure if only 40 bits of entropy were used to create it, and
no amount of statistical testing will reveal any patterns in something
with even modest amouts of entropy once it's been processed using
cryptographic techniques.
Of the techniques mentioned so far, my limited knowledge of physics
suggests that thermal noise is the most reasonable, but that comes with a
major caveat that there must also be a thermometer in it to tell when
entropy is actually coming out - it would be embarassing if my system got
hacked just because I was using my laptop outside on a cold day.
-Bram
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:20:11 ADT