4 ms·
The introduction is a very nice example of how a lot of academic cryptography works and what disconnect there is often between applied and academic cryptography
by hannob 10y ago
The introduction is a very nice example of how a lot of academic cryptography works and what disconnect there is often between applied and academic cryptography.
They quote Bruce Schneier, basically saying that nobody needs this and we already have plenty of ways to generate secure random numbers. This is countered with some handwavy arguments why you'd need them anyway that aren't really explained.
The truth is: We don't need any theoretical work to generate better random numbers, because we know how to do it. All security problems about random numbers come from the fact that people aren't using the secure random number sources we have.
- more_original 10y agoA good understanding of randomness has much further implications than just generating random numbers for cryptography. This work is not indended as a practical method for generating random numbers, I think. Randomness is very important for algorithms. It is currently unknown if being able to make random choices adds expressive power to efficient algorithms (the P=BPP question). Being able to generate good random numbers from a weak source can lead to more efficient determinsitic implementations of randomized algorithms, for example.
- hannob 10y agoSeeing it like this is totally fine. I.e. this is basic research to better understand the nature of random numbers. It just happens that all so often I see vague justifications of the form "Random numbers are important for crypto THEREFORE we need fancy random number thing X" - however the logical link between the two is not explained in detail (X may be quantum RNGs - or papers like the above). I won't blame anyone for doing basic research. I just don't like it if people advertise their basic research with practical implications that simply aren't justified.