Nico's Really Random Generator (original) (raw)

A massive conversation starting with a proposal for generating "really random" numbers in the PC environment without added hardware.

• 1992-06-19 Nico de Vries: A "flawless, noise-based" really-random generator for the PC using software only?
• 1992-06-20 Nico de Vries: Nico responds to Tony Patti's message about his RANGER really-random hardware using 16 crystal oscillators (the earlier message was not saved)
• 1992-06-20 Tony Patti: Tony responds to Nico on the RANGER design
• 1992-06-22 Nico de Vries: (get the "trick" by e-mail)
• 1992-06-22 Paul Koning: Paul responds to Nico about crystal oscillator correlation
• 1992-06-22 Nico de Vries: Nico responds to Paul: "try it"
• 1992-06-22 Nico de Vries: Nico finally publishes the source
• 1992-06-23 Terry Ritter: Terry jumps in with an early analysis
• 1992-06-23 Nico de Vries: Nico responds "I couldn't find any patterns"
• 1992-06-23 Vesselin Bontchev: Vesselin suggests using a visual display for detecting adjacent-value correlation
• 1992-06-23 Nico de Vries: Nico's visual correlation test source
• 1992-06-23 Terry Ritter: Terry suggests that memory refresh DMA "could be the major source of apparent randomness"
• 1992-06-24 Phil Karn: "Surely Nico's algorithm is better than many existing techniques"
• 1992-06-24 Nico de Vries: "Can anyone with a single clock please test the code"
• 1992-06-24 Terry Ritter: "crystal oscillators do not 'jitter'"
• 1992-06-24 Ross Anderson: "The current flame war"
• 1992-06-24 Nico de Vries: "no flame war"
• 1992-06-25 Terry Ritter: "no flame war"
• 1992-06-25 Ted Drawneek: "phase noise is present even in crystal oscillators"
• 1992-06-25 Nico de Vries: "is a crystal 'fully deterministic'"
• 1992-06-25 Nico de Vries: Nico responds to Ted: (phase noise" is "what I expected"
• 1992-06-25 Nico de Vries: Nico responds to Terry: "agree no flame war"
• 1992-06-25 Terry Ritter: Terry responds to Ted: "phase noise is 2.5 psec. Measure *that* on a PC with software and timers"
• 1992-06-25 Terry Ritter: "for practical purposes, using PC timers and software measurement, crystal oscillators do not 'jitter'"
• 1992-06-26 Ted Drawneek: Ted responds to Terry: "phase noise can have a bandwidth of 3 kHz"
• 1992-06-26 Phil Zimmermann: "let's use MD5 to distill down true randomness"
• 1992-06-26 Colin Plumb: Colin displays his knowledge of RNG's
• 1992-06-26 Nico de Vries: Nico responds to Terry: "no practical test has shown problems"
• 1992-06-26 Terry Ritter: Terry responds to Colin
• 1992-06-26 Terry Ritter: Terry responds to Phil Z.
• 1992-06-27 Phil Zimmermann: Phil Z. responds to Terry
• 1992-06-27 Johnathan Thornburg: Johnathan weighs in
• 1992-06-27 Terry Ritter: Terry finally bestirs himself to present a serious analysis
• 1992-06-27 Phil Karn: "widen the counter and run an autocorrelation on the results"
• 1992-06-28 Albert Boulanger: Albert weighs in
• 1992-06-28 Greg Rose: Greg supports Nico
• 1992-06-29 Miroslav Asic: apparently Miroslav's hot button is CRC "strength"
• 1992-06-29 Nico de Vries: "the generator is useful"
• 1992-06-29 Nico de Vries: P.S.
• 1992-07-01 Peter Gutmann: Peter suggests that there are other PC oscillators which could also be used
• 1992-07-01 Ralph Neutrino: "chaotic dynamical systems are definitely not random"
• 1992-10-26 Tony Patti: Tony summarizes the features of his RANGER really-random design
• 1992-11-03 Terry Ritter: constitutionally unable to let it lie, Terry presents Crystal Oscillators Thought Harmful

Terry Ritter, hiscurrent address, and his top page.

Last updated: 1995-10-29