At 10:36 PM 10/6/95, Scott Brickner wrote:
I'm not an expert here, but I understand the "well-known methods" to essentially use some formula that "tends" to generate prime numbers from uniformly distributed numbers, feed it a "good" random number, and then check to see if it's really prime. If it's not, pick another "good" random number and try again. The entropy in the prime is the same as in the random number generator.
The commonly used method is to generate a random number, then interate up (or down, it doesn't matter), testing each number in turn for primality. One doesn't have to test too many numbers to find a prime, as I explained in my last post. It is indeed true that the entropy or randomness lies in the selection of the random number that one starts searching from. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."