4 ms·

but is it really random or pseudorandom? i feel that services like these can be useful to introduce a higher level of entropy to your own local random number li

but is it really random or pseudorandom? i feel that services like these can be useful to introduce a higher level of entropy to your own local random number library

stephenr 10y ago
> i feel that services like these can be useful to introduce a higher level of entropy to your own local random number library They just use /dev/urandom + sha512, and them capitalise some characters. You can pipe /dev/urandom input into any number of tools locally to get random strings - base64 is nice as it gives you a wider range of characters.
- gerlv 10y ago
  guys, I think you over-estimate what this tool does. It's not a saas or something to be integrated with projects. The only reason I've made it is to avoid creating random strings every time I need them. In the past few months I've done the following at least 5 times: 1) run ipython 2) run the following code: import os import hashlib print(hashlib.sha512(os.urandom(128)).hexdigest()) The problem that it takes unnecessary time to do it. `curl -L r.ger.lv` is way simpler and faster for the same result. In fact, it's exactly the same code that's running on this site :) It's a small tool so you have fewer excuses to leave `SECURE_STRING = "TODO_CHANGEME"` in settings files. I did this tool mainly for myself, thought I'd share it, maybe someone finds it useful.
  - stephenr 10y ago
    > guys, I think you over-estimate what this tool does I don't at all. That's my whole point. You've taken yet another pretty simple command line utility, and made a "web service" for it. > In the past few months I've done the following at least 5 times I've probably generated 2x that many random strings just to generate test examples for how else this could be done, compare times, etc. I didn't suddenly think that I should put that on a http server somewhere. > maybe someone finds it useful or maybe someone uses it as a source of random data for their production application because they don't know any better. You can get random strings in a shell by running `base64 /dev/urandom | head -c 30`. If you wanted to make it (or your own solution) easier, why not just create a shell script (or a python script with a shebang line). Even easier execution (i.e., tab-completion to the path), no reliance on network or a server, no security issues by loading data over a remote connection.

but is it really random or pseudorandom? i feel that services like these can be useful to introduce a higher level of entropy to your own local random number library

stephenr 10y ago

> i feel that services like these can be useful to introduce a higher level of entropy to your own local random number library They just use /dev/urandom + sha512, and them capitalise some characters. You can pipe /dev/urandom input into any number of tools locally to get random strings - base64 is nice as it gives you a wider range of characters.

gerlv 10y ago
guys, I think you over-estimate what this tool does. It's not a saas or something to be integrated with projects. The only reason I've made it is to avoid creating random strings every time I need them. In the past few months I've done the following at least 5 times: 1) run ipython 2) run the following code: import os import hashlib print(hashlib.sha512(os.urandom(128)).hexdigest()) The problem that it takes unnecessary time to do it. `curl -L r.ger.lv` is way simpler and faster for the same result. In fact, it's exactly the same code that's running on this site :) It's a small tool so you have fewer excuses to leave `SECURE_STRING = "TODO_CHANGEME"` in settings files. I did this tool mainly for myself, thought I'd share it, maybe someone finds it useful.
- stephenr 10y ago
  > guys, I think you over-estimate what this tool does I don't at all. That's my whole point. You've taken yet another pretty simple command line utility, and made a "web service" for it. > In the past few months I've done the following at least 5 times I've probably generated 2x that many random strings just to generate test examples for how else this could be done, compare times, etc. I didn't suddenly think that I should put that on a http server somewhere. > maybe someone finds it useful or maybe someone uses it as a source of random data for their production application because they don't know any better. You can get random strings in a shell by running `base64 /dev/urandom | head -c 30`. If you wanted to make it (or your own solution) easier, why not just create a shell script (or a python script with a shebang line). Even easier execution (i.e., tab-completion to the path), no reliance on network or a server, no security issues by loading data over a remote connection.