-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Wed, 27 Nov 1996, Pavel Korensky wrote:
when I read about hardware random number generators in this mailing list, I got one idea. Maybe it sounds crazy, but is it possible to use soundcard (SoundBlaster for example) as a source for really random numbers ? What if I connect the input line of the soundcard with some external source of noise, like FM receiver or Dolby Surround decoder (with built-in white noise generator) or tape recorder with blank (erased) tape. It is possible to sample the sound (noise) and use the sampled values as a random numbers ? And how much random is this source ?
The LSBs of a recording of white noise or static should be pretty random. This should not be your only source of entropy as it's very easy for an attacker to bias the signals. If a one-way hash is applied to the output, it does make it much more difficult for an attacker to predict or influence the RNG. Mark - - -- finger -l for PGP key PGP encrypted mail prefered. 0xf9b22ba5 now revoked -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMpyV2SzIPc7jvyFpAQF8+ggAvRmoEaJqaK80j1RxKAp7Y44gjKxWlVPd pZlD+9P8bwoKQWZsMtKwG790d34ebmqnDVm6ES9mcp2HI1lqHrjDub6+dBPZyRjo +NPhdtRmLZ4iqzE9n0xAPTeMDJGQOmxKQHHJCzOmG5nio5OFPyJzAbZy9DkNiH8A n6xp+YBtC3gL7NKufMo0ehVW4XMM4EkwKmpIRMHM+m9Q8lhsQxzPr2+GaDQwo18s jkrEB4xK+wnscpsjz/c7hvNnutgdVjlCU7xhDuR+prb4dHwAqhraXDgrpZuhZC8M +Wyau1/11VXAfY03e8i/CiFrE4d6h9li95EopBuO6EfcjWZGgMH80g== =FSod -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----