[7278] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: random seed generation without user interaction?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arnold G. Reinhold)
Wed Jun 7 08:22:06 2000
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Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 22:33:08 -0400
To: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@research.att.com>,
Dennis Glatting <dennis.glatting@software-munitions.com>,
John Kelsey <kelsey.j@ix.netcom.com>, cryptography@c2.net,
Jeff.Hodges@stanford.edu
From: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
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At 3:27 PM -0400 6/6/2000, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
>In message <20000606153934.3566035DC2@smb.research.att.com>, "Steven
>M. Bellovi
>n" writes:
>>In message <393D04AC.8E119B01@software-munitions.com>, Dennis
>>Glatting writes:
>>
>
> >>>
> >>
>>>There is an article (somewhere) on the net of digital cameras focused
>>>on lava lamps. Photos are taken of the lava lamps and mixed into a
>>>hash function to generate random data. I believe the author had some
>>>algorithm for turning the lamps on and off, too.
>>>
>>See lavarand.sgi.com.
>>
>
> >I had thought it was patented, but a quick search of uspto.gov didn't
>>turn it up.
>
>Following up on my own post... My brain clearly wasn't in gear when I
>did my previous search. It's U.S. patent 5,732,138; see
>http://patents.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/ifetch4?ENG+PATBIB-ALL+0+988124+0+6+
>31831+OF+1+1+1+PN%2f5%2c732%2c138
>
>
> --Steve Bellovin
The patent appears much broader than just focusing a camera on a Lava
lamp. They claim digitizing the state of any chaotic system and then
hashing it to seed a PRNG. The Lava lamp is given as a specific
example (claim 3).
Arnold Reinhold
