CDR: Re: one time pad and random num gen

[Ray Dillinger]

On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Kevin Elliott wrote:

>A 
>cryptographically strong PRNG would then be a PRNG with a very large 
>period and some way of reinjecting randomness to guarantee the device 
>never begins to recycle.
>-- 
>

Isn't that a misnomer though?  If randomness is reinjected to 
prevent the system from falling into a period, then it won't 
be possible to generate the same sequence of bits twice -- so 
you can't use such a system for a PSEUDO-random generator, in 
applications like a stream cipher or whatever.  Programs rely 
on the same sequence coming out of the same initial state with 
a PRNG -- otherwise things like stream ciphers can't be decrypted. 

What you describe above, I'd have termed an RNG - not a PRNG. 

				Bear