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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: 2) by twistedcubic on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:27AM

    by twistedcubic (929) on Saturday November 14 2015, @04:27AM (#263047)

    The Mersenne Twister does not pass the harder statistical tests. RANLUX is better, and passes the Spectral Test in high dimensions.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:18AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:18AM (#263075)

    There comes a time to say "good enough," and 600 dimensions is good enough for me.

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