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Date:      Tue,  1 Aug 2000 11:13:46 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Marc van Woerkom <marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com>
To:        phk@freebsd.org
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: How to make *real* random bits.
Message-ID:  <20000801091346.902291F63@nil.science-factory.com>
In-Reply-To: <5924.965073661@critter.freebsd.dk> (message from Poul-Henning Kamp on Mon, 31 Jul 2000 22:01:01 %2B0200)
References:   <5924.965073661@critter.freebsd.dk>

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> I located a surplus german geiger counter cheaply [1], I have always
> wanted to have one anyway, and in my junkbox I already had an old
> smoke alarm [2].  The Geiger counter has a thin-walled tube which
> takes about 15 events per second from the Am-241 source in the
> smoke alarm.

Very cool and probably a lot cheaper than professional offerings 
(I heard of cards with "nuclear chips").

On the other hand I wonder if this gives a practical advantage,
in my naive view I would believe taping randomness from user events 
plus listing to hardware events (most people should have quite
different hardware) would generate good enough results.

Has there been any analysis that helps to estimate the difference
in security?

Regards,
Marc



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