[117626] in Cypherpunks
Re: Build a better OTP?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sunder)
Tue Sep 7 14:51:50 1999
Message-ID: <37D55BF3.1E598588@brainlink.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 14:39:47 -0400
From: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
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To: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@openpgp.net>
CC: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
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Reply-To: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
"William H. Geiger III" wrote:
>
> In <199909061613.SAA05886@mail.replay.com>, on 09/06/99
> at 06:13 PM, Anonymous <nobody@replay.com> said:
>
> >> Has anyone designed a true random number generator that runs at high
> >> speed? Something that could fill a CD or DVD in a reasonable amount of
> >> time?
>
> >Yes, there's one out by a little company called Intel. You might have
> >heard of them.
>
> >They're building it into their chip sets so if you buy a new computer
> >you'll probably get it automatically. Soon, random bits will essentially
> >be ubiquitous. Anyone who cares can have all the random numbers he
> >wants.
>
> >The data rate is in the megabytes per hour range so it would take a few
> >days to fill a CD.
>
> Yes but is it trustworthy?
Sure it is. Use a second OTPgen and XOR them, one you've built that you know
is trustworthy - even if it is a bit biased, it won't matter. A true random
number gen, XOR'ed with N false ones (that aren't related to the true one)
will always yield true random numbers. :^) You then take the result and
massage it a bit getting rid of dead spaces, etc.
(i.e. by unrelated false rng I mean that the slimetel one isn't going to take
your bits and give you c^0xff producing all 0x00's.) :) I suppose untrusted
would be a better word than false.
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