From: marc@kg6kf.ampr.org (Marc de Groot - KG6KF)
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 03:44:55 PPE
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Alpha Particles and One Time Pads
Message-ID: <9210261024.AA11069@kg6kf.ampr.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Tim May sez:
	Here's a posting I just sent to sci.crypt, dealing with using alpha
	particle sources as noise sources for generating one-time pads.
	
Tim,
Why not use a back-biased germanium diode, or other noisy semiconductor
junction?  Seriously, the NRC has allowed the smoke detector people to
spread those little radioactive chunks of Americium for too long.

John Walker of AutoDesk actually built an IBM-PC card that generated
random numbers from a radioactive source.

All the best,

^M