[42696] in Cypherpunks
Video as a source of randomness
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew D. Isaacson)
Thu Nov 2 01:11:14 1995
From: "Andrew D. Isaacson" <adisaacs@mtu.edu>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 01:02:06 -0500 (EST)
A thought just occurred to me...
How useful would it be to use a video stream as a source of random input
to something like /dev/random? I'm thinking along the lines of a
Connectix QuickCam (sp?) or the cool videocam that comes with the Indy.
It seems to me that the picture recieved by a camera sitting atop a
monitor would be quite unpredictable. (relatively) High bandwith, too.
Even if the entropy in a video signal is low, the high bandwidth would
seem to make up for it.
Struggling to keep my head above the crypto tide,
andy
--
Andrew Isaacson <adisaacs@mtu.edu> finger adisaacs@colossus.csl.mtu.edu
Freshman/Comp Sci @ Michigan Technological University for PGP public key
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