9 ms·
I have always wondered why not introduce physical randomness into cryptography. Let's take scalability out of the question and look at the problem at the fund
by jaunkst 10y ago
I have always wondered why not introduce physical randomness into cryptography. Let's take scalability out of the question and look at the problem at the fundamental level. If we used a box of sand that shifted each time a random number was requested and a camera to scan and produce a number from this source would it not more random than any other method? I'm not a professional in this field I am just truly asking why not..
- DigitalJack 10y agoThere was some service (maybe still around) that did this with cameras and lava lamps. edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavarand
- grahamburger 10y agoAlso random.org. I thought I remembered seeing one that used radioactive decay to generate random files for download but I can't find it now.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoWell CERN produce terabytes of data from experiments (when running!); particle collision images must be random with much more disorder than mere decay timings.
- Jach 10y agoHotBits: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/ Also quantum 'randomness': https://qrng.anu.edu.au https://qrng.anu.edu.au
- jaunkst 10y agoAwesome, at least I am not crazy. A lava lamp was not my first choice but somehow fitting :)
- jlgaddis 10y agoI can't remember their names off the top of my head (not near a PC) but there are packages available for some Linux distributions that use your audio (i.e. microphone) and video (i.e. webcam) input devices for generating entropy.
- stephengillie 10y agoI've often visualized a Trouble Pop-o-matic[0] hooked to a webcam and a solenoid. The solenoid would pop the die, and simple computer vision could count the pips or number on the die. I'm unsure how many would be needed to make SSL work. [0] http://i.imgur.com/fL9Bg0M.jpg http://i.imgur.com/fL9Bg0M.jpg
- VMG 10y agoWhy not just put your cat in front of it and use sha3 on the image?
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoJust capture an image from any webcam. I seem to remember something like SSL cert creation using mouse movement for entropy seeding.
- crawlerie 10y agoThat would be PuTTYgen[1] actually. [1]: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
- gcp 10y agoPGP/GPG traditionally did this too.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoAh, I think that's where I used it, when trying PGP for mail signing.
- VMG 10y agoWell if it's pure black or white or sth like that, it's within the reach of brute-forcing. Ideally it should be private and contain some amount of entropy.
- bootload 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sobellian 10y agoNew Intel chips use a special bistable circuit to generate random bits in hardware, but many people don't seem to trust it (talk of back doors and such). Frankly, it seems to me that if you're worrying about the intentions of your CPU manufacturer, you're screwed anyway. I guess that I also haven't put that much thought into it though.
- flamedoge 10y agoOnly truly truly dependable with 99.9^ % certainty is to build your own CPU and RNG.
- im3w1l 10y agoMost kinds of CPU misbehavior are detectable: "-Did it add the two numbers correctly? -No it did not" Randomness is different: "-Did it generate a random number? -Well it generated some kind of number...."
- Cyph0n 10y agoYeah, Intel's new design blows everything else out of the water when it comes to throughput, but it consumes more power. I think not trusting a hardware RNG is a valid concern. As a consumer, it might not be a big deal, but what if you're buying CPUs for use in top-secret government machines? Given Intel's interests, it may likely comply with a backdoor request depending on the target. One of the areas I'd like to look into is hardware integrity checking. It's most likely impossible, but it's worth a shot.
- topkekz 10y ago> but many people don't seem to trust it This paper explains how to weaken the intel RNG by modifying only one logic gate and still make it passes the integrity tests. http://sharps.org/wp-content/uploads/BECKER-CHES.pdf http://sharps.org/wp-content/uploads/BECKER-CHES.pdf
- eru 10y agoCynically: you can't write papers about this. Practically: lots of cryptographic protocols just ask for a source of randomness, but don't care where it's from.
- keypusher 10y agoThis is already the most common source, no? /dev/random uses environmental noise collected from device drivers.