Mac PGP report and Rander progress

Tony Kidson tony at morgan.demon.co.uk
Fri Nov 27 08:56:24 PST 1992


In message <9211270003.AA20577 at napa.TELEBIT.COM> you write:
> Has anyone given any thought to generating random numbers by counting
> particle emissions from a radioactive source?  This might be more
> reliably random than using purely electronic means.
>
I don't think that for any given length of random bit string, 
you'd be practically happy carrying around a suitable source. 
Thermal noise, which is what you get from a diode, is just as 
good a random source as radioactive decay.

Tony
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