2 Aug
2004
2 Aug
'04
1:40 a.m.
At 12:44 AM 8/2/04, you wrote:
There's a "hassle factor" in selling radioactive devices to the military,
but it's easily done these days at home. Here's what I do:
http://www.etoan.com/random-number-generation/index.html
My favorite on
the opposite end, is a random bit stream produced by
using the pulses from a geiger counter (and associated radioactive
material) to clock a long shift register. It's well-discussed, but I'm
not sure anyone ever produced one.
I *think* some military crypto gear did things link this, but I am not
sure. I know that AT&T once marketted a true random
bitstream chip using a bunch
of unstable oscillators.
I've seen that described, but no justification for the entropy claimed.
In response to an earlier comment, early noise generators used a
photomultiplier
tube in a sealed box with the gain turned all the way up. Using the noise
("snow") from an unused TV (or even radio) channel is not a good idea.
Cheers,
Dan