From: rustman@netcom.com (Rusty H. Hodge)
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 94 00:45:15 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Random #'s via Sound Cards
Message-ID: <199404300746.AAA23008@netcom.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At  9:03 PM 4/29/94 -0700, Phil Karn wrote:
>The easiest way to get true random numbers on a PC nowadays is
>with a sound board, preferably 16 bit. Just MD-5 hash some gibberish
>speech and/or background noise.

Great idea.  Hell, you don't even really need random gibbirish; most sound
cards have such poor analog audio front ends, you could just turn up the
gain and look at the LSBs.  I've mostly used the mid-level Mac products
from Digidesign, and even they have analog noise that is easily detectable
in the lower bits.

And for MacPGP- most Macs now have a sound-in; you could either do the
noise trick again (won't work as well in 8-bit, probably), or just base it
on the backgroud sounds.

Rusty H. Hodge, Hodge Productions    <rustman@netcom.com> (714) 532-6800
GAT d--@ -p+(p---) c++ !l u++ m+(*) s+/++ !n(-) h* f+(*) !g w++ t@ r- y*