I know that a popular method for generating random bit streams is to take radio (stellar) noise and convert it into a digital bit stream. Very popular among crypto geeks. Steven Naslund -----Original Message----- From: Dan White [mailto:dwhite@olp.net] Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 10:55 PM To: Jonathan Lassoff Cc: North American Network Operators Group Subject: Re: best way to create entropy? On 10/11/12 17:08 -0700, Jonathan Lassoff wrote:
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 5:01 PM, shawn wilson <ag4ve.us@gmail.com> wrote:
in the past, i've done many different things to create entropy - encode videos, watch youtube, tcpdump -vvv > /dev/null, compiled a kernel. but, what is best? just whatever gets your cpu to peak or are some tasks better than others?
Personally, I've used and recommend this USB stick: http://www.entropykey.co.uk/
Internally, it uses diodes that are reverse-biased just ever so close to the breakdown voltage such that they randomly flip state back and forth.
+1. -- Dan White