Re: Random Number in PRG: example

[Phil Gregory <pgregory@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 01:57:10PM +0100, Paul Cunnane wrote:
> Caveat: every time you run this, you will get the same sequence of `random'
> numbers.  To get more truly pseudo-random numbers, seed the generator with
> (say) the result of the TIME opcode.

Does OS/400 have some source of truly random data?  I'm think specifically
of something analogous to many Unix implementations' /dev/random, which
gives access to a small pool of bits derived from random sources like
hardware interrupts and keypresses.  In unix programming it is often
customary to read a bute from /dev/random and use that byte to seed a
psuedo-random number generator.

Also, there exists a class of random number generators known as
"cryptographically secure".  These are programs that have a very large
period and are difficult to invert.  THey also tend to be slower than
"normal" PRNGs.  For more information, look at Bruce Schneier's book,
_Applied Cryptography_.
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