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Date:      Thu, 18 Sep 1997 23:47:59 -0700
From:      "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>
To:        "Jamil J. Weatherbee" <jamil@counterintelligence.ml.org>
Cc:        Eivind Eklund <perhaps@yes.no>, md6tommy@mdstud.chalmers.se, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: CDROM image 
Message-ID:  <21980.874651679@time.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 18 Sep 1997 21:16:37 PDT." <Pine.BSF.3.96.970918211545.1097B-100000@counterintelligence.ml.org> 

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The CDROM comes with automatic entropy reduction features, don't
worry.  For one thing, we take the output of a very high quality
random number generator (a ring of 40 sampled lava lamps from SGI's
Countercultural Randomness division), bias it with the detected events
from a cosmic ray detector and then write this in a subtrack on the
CD.  When data from the CD is read, the randomness is automatically
inverted and added to the data, thus cancelling out any entropy in a
fashion similar to the way noise cancellation is carried out.

In other words, don't sweat it.  We're experts, dude.

					Jordan

> 
> So how does this effect the entropy of the system of bits?
> 
> > trees, etc.  If you look at the sheer volume of bits involved, they're
> > really almost completely different products.
> > 
>  					Jordan 
> 
> 
> 




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