encrypted FM radio hiss

Mok-Kong Shen mok-kong.shen at stud.uni-muenchen.de
Wed Jul 29 01:01:46 PDT 1998


David Honig wrote:
> 
> At 10:40 AM 7/28/98 +0100, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> >David Honig wrote:
> >
> >> The output of a good block cipher in feedback mode will pass Diehard tests,
> >> though it is not crypto-secure.
> >
> >I often see the phrase 'pass Diehard test' though I don't see from
> >the documents of Diehard how to evaluate the volumenous printout
> >of Diehard to say exactly whether the test is passed or not. Furthermore
> >the component asc2bin.exe of Diehard is buggy.

> 
> My rough understanding: the 'P' value is a measure on the hypothesis that
> the test sample is a truly random sample, where truly random is defined by
> the expected
> statistical properties being measured.  Eg in 100 bits you expect to find
> 50 1's;
> if you count 48, is your 100-bit sample consistant with it being
> unpredictable?

My concrete problem is: With the bunch of p-values how does one
(in accordance with the intention of the designer of the package)
go about to determine that the test is passed at a certain confidence
level. I don't see anything in the documents instructing the user
to do this. Maybe I indeed missed something. Please point that out
in this case.

M. K. Shen






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