[103725] in Cypherpunks
Re: Randomness testing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Burnes)
Fri Oct 2 10:06:31 1998
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 07:38:30 -0600 (MDT)
From: Jim Burnes <jvb@ssds.com>
To: Clifford Heath <cjh@osa.com.au>
cc: cypherpunks-unedited@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <m0zOxtY-0001eoC@magpie.osa.com.au>
Reply-To: Jim Burnes <jvb@ssds.com>
On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Clifford Heath wrote:
> We have been asked by a customer if we have any tests that demonstrate
> the randomness of the SSLeay random number generator (augmented by some
> sound-card random number seeding that we wrote).
>
> I'd like to find some standard implementation for testing randomness, but
> Schneier offers no help (other than a reference to Knuth Vol 2), and I
> don't know where else to turn.
>
> I realise that cryptographic randomness requires unpredictability, and
> this quality depends upon closed-world assumptions about unknown individuals'
> predictive powers, but we have to live with that.
>
You mean you don't have a copy of Knuth, Vol 2. For shame!
I'm too lazy to look it up for you, but I believe the two tests
are called the Run test and the Chi-square method.
(trying to remember from my own dusty compSci memories)
jim
