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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:25
Perry E. Metzger (perry@piermont.com)
02 Feb 1999 08:52:00 -0500
Bruce Schneier <schneier@counterpane.com> writes:
> At 11:41 PM 2/1/99 -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> >Speaking of Montecarlo, I've been wondering for some time:
> >
> >Is RC4 a good PRNG for monte carlo types? I mean, its a very good PRNG
> >-- is it good enough for *non*-cryptographic use?
>
> I would think so. If it has problems in Monte Carlo tests, that would be a
> VERY interesting cryptographic result.
That's what I've always thought -- if there is *any* bad property from
a Monte Carlo point of view it will be far worse from a cryptography
point of view. HOWEVER, that seems to imply that there is no point in
using linear congruential generators, since RC4 is trivial to code and
use (insignificantly harder than a LCPRNG), and is far better at being
random!
Perry
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:25