Intel 810 Random Number Generator

[David Whysong]

>> Either you trust RNG or you don't.  There is no middle ground.
>
>I just trust hardware RNG to be more random then keypresses. Yes there
>is middle ground.

Taking the least significant bits of a fast timer between keypresses is a
very good way of generating entropy. I'd trust it more than some unknown
hardware generator. The same is true of network packets.

The key is to have a timer that is much faster than the network or
keyboard interfaces. There must also be a _minimal_ amount of "jitter" to
the keypresses or packet arrival times -- in practice it would probably be
extremely difficult to make the times regular enough to attack the RNG.
That's all it takes to make some of the least significant timer bits a
good source of entropy.

Dave

David Whysong                                       dwhysong en physics.ucsb.edu
Astrophysics graduate student         University of California, Santa Barbara
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