Sound card as a random number source ??

[Pavel Korensky]

Hello,

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 ? 
I tried to find some mentions about this method with altavista, but I didn't
found anything.

Bye PavelK


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*                    Pavel Korensky (pavelk at dator3.anet.cz)                *
*     DATOR3 Ltd., Modranska 1895/17, 143 00 Prague 4, Czech Republic      *
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