From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon Sep 02 2002 - 17:28:52 MDT
All you need is a webcam and a lava lamp...
http://www.sciencenews.org/20010512/mathtrek.asp
Emlyn
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Ramonsky [mailto:alex@ramonsky.com]
> Sent: Monday, 2 September 2002 21:42
> To: extropians
> Subject: More random numbers
>
>
> Thankyou to everyone for all the time & trouble helping with
> this...unfortunately, I wasn't clear enough about what I was after...
> None of the suggestions actually meet my requirements (although thank
> you for all of them)! I'll try to be a bit more specific...
> 'Reasonably affordable' = <$400
> 'hardware'='a self-contained physical device , which I can
> plug into one
> of the ports on the back of my PC' (of course, this does
> include mouse
> and keyboard)
> 'with software driver for windows' ...speaks for itself.
> There is also a fourth requirement which I didn't state,
> which is that
> the random numbers generated must be secret; that is, unknown
> to anybody
> else. This requirement precludes the use of any web sources of random
> bits, such as HotBits, since an eavesdropper could intercept them and
> know what bits I'd used. It must be self-contained, and usable on a
> computer which is not connected to the internet.
> ..The concept (thanks Charles!) of writing some kind of background
> process to accumulate keystrokes sounds like a workable alternative
> solution. I confess I don't know how to write drivers for
> Windows, but I
> guess I do have enough programming knowledge to accumulate
> the bits and
> stick them in a file. I also know how to crypto-hash them to sort out
> the distribution, and I guess this would probably do.
> Being a lazy sloth, I was rather hoping for an off-the-shelf
> plug-and-play peripheral that I could just stick into the USB
> port and,
> lo and behold, it would simply work first time and wouldn't cost
> thousands of dollars. : )
> It seems odd that if I can buy a printer or scanner that meets these
> requirements for less than $100, why can't I find a simple device
> consisting of a resistor and an A2D converter for a similar price! Is
> this such an outlandish concept, or am I just completely mad
> in hoping
> for it?
> Ramonsky
>
>
>
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