From: toaster@dne3.net   
      
   On Sun, 30 Mar 2025 09:11:47 -0400 (EDT)   
   kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:   
      
   > Richard Kettlewell   wrote:   
   > >Richard Kettlewell  writes:   
   > >> Exactly! All the stuff about lava lamps, helium motion inside hard   
   > >> disks, etc is just gimmicks. Real random numbers are tiny   
   > >> electronic   
   > >                                                 ^generators   
   > >> components built into CPUs, HSMs, etc.   
   > >   
   > >Strictly I should probably say “entropy sourcesâ€_, since   
   there’s   
   > >generally a DRBG between the electronics and the application, as   
   > >well.   
   >    
   > The problem with those genuine random number generators is that they   
   > are usually comparatively slow.  They take milliseconds to spit out a   
   > number, sometimes tens or even hundreds of them.  So we use the   
   > genuine RNG to seed a PNG in situations where we don't need complete   
   > randomness but need pretty good randomness and need a lot of it fast.   
   >  Knuth has a discussion of this.   
   > --scott   
      
   im no expert but can't you just amplify thermal (white) noise and just   
   sample it? it's completely random.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)