From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Mon, 2 Oct 95 21:45:15 PDT
To: Dave Dittrich <dittrich@cac.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Simple Hardware RNG Idea
In-Reply-To: <9510021817.AA01271@red2.cac.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <199510030445.AAA29715@frankenstein.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Dave Dittrich writes:
> 
> > Perry writes, regarding alpha decay counts for random numbers:
> > 
> > > And, as I noted, there are RS232 interfaceable radiation detectors you
> > > can buy off the shelf -- no hardware hacking needed.

> I was thinking about this the other day and wondered if it wouldn't be
> cheap and relatively easy to build a board that samples and sums
> several randomly selected signals on various frequencies on the AM
> broadcast spectrum.

Radio signals can be interfered with or listened to -- never
underestimate the opponent. Computer interfaced radiation detectors,
in spite of Tim's claim to the contrary, are pretty cheap and very
hard to interfere with.

Perry