16 Dec
1992
16 Dec
'92
7:15 a.m.
From: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed) Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 2:30:49 EST Has anyone tried using the microsecond counter from unix as a random source ? Its obviously *not* going to be good if you want a continuous stream of random numbers, but if you need them just 'every now and then', what about it ? This should be in an FAQ: Unixes have different levels of granularity in the microsecond counter; some systems may only have a 10 ms (that's 10000 microsecond) resolution to their clock. So you can't necessarily depend on a getting lot of bits of randomness from this method. - Ted