[Thumbgps-devel] time and random numbers

[Ron Frazier (NTP)]

Hi guys,

Steve Gibson, of Gibson Research Corp. knows quite a lot about random 
numbers and cryptography.  His Security Now podcast is very useful.  You 
might find these links and episodes interesting.

https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-299.mp3 - Going Random PT 1
http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-301.mp3 - Going Random PT 2
http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-143.mp3 - Yubikey One Time Password Device

Steve recommends never writing your own crypto.  Even he doesn't do it.  
He recommends using algorithms proven and tested by crypto experts.  The 
failure of WEP encryption, which can now be cracked in under a minute, 
is example of the pitfalls.

Sincerely,

Ron


On 3/10/2012 8:48 PM, Patrick Maupin wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Dave Taht<dave.taht at gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> One of my other concerns in life is the lack of quality random numbers
>> for use in cryptography.
>>      
> Worth thinking about.
>
>    
>> http://warmcat.com/_wp/whirlygig-rng/
>>      
> I'm not sure I would trust something like this unless I was sure the
> author understood a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, and that lots
> of experts had then examined it from various aspects.  There's a
> growing body of literature on this.  See, e.g.:
>
> http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijrc/2010/879281/
>
> Having said that, the board I'm envisioning could actually be used for
> the quantization stage of random number generation from random events
> in time such as alpha decay.
>
>    


-- 

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Ron Frazier
timekeepingdude AT c3energy.com