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posted by martyb on Friday November 13 2015, @01:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the entropy-FTW dept.

Want a FIPS 140-2 RNG? Look at the universe. The cosmic background radiation bathes Earth in enough random numbers to encrypt everything forever. Using the cosmic background radiation – the "echo of the Big Bang" – as a random number generation isn't a new idea, but a couple of scientists have run the slide-rule over measurements of the CMB power spectrum and reckon it offers a random number space big enough to beat any current computer.

Not in terms of protecting messages against any current decryption possibility: the CMB's power spectrum offers a key space "too large for the encryption/decryption capacities of present computer systems". A straightforward terrestrial radio telescope, this Arxiv paper states, should be good enough to make "astrophysical entropy sources accessible on comparatively modest budgets".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/12/big_bang_left_us_with_a_perfect_random_number_generator/


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  • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Friday November 13 2015, @02:27PM

    by throwaway28 (5181) on Friday November 13 2015, @02:27PM (#262648) Journal

    Please connect a 1 billion dollar telescope to the USB port to activate /dev/cmb. The upcoming Giant Magellan Telescope will serve nicely.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Zinho on Friday November 13 2015, @09:44PM

    by Zinho (759) on Friday November 13 2015, @09:44PM (#262847)

    Radio telescope not needed; you can observe cosmic rays well enough using a USB webcam in a light-proof box. [archive.org]

    Original site is now offline, but the project lives on at sourceforge. [sourceforge.net]

    --
    "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin