112
votes
Why do some people believe that humans are "bad at" generating random numbers/characters like this?
In short, it is more than a belief: there is strong evidence that humans are not good entropy sources. There is a test for this
Man vs. Machine. Or, why Man is not a Particularly Good Source of ...
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49
votes
Accepted
Can you use memory errors as a source of randomness for cryptography?
(..) would it be viable to allocate a very large amount of memory (perhaps in a long loop) and use the errors that eventually occur as a source of randomness?
No. Practical use of memory errors as a ...
- 125k
45
votes
Accepted
What is the practical impact of using System.Random which is not cryptographically random?
You asked for the practical impact, so the answer is that for \$120 I could probably have your entire password database done by tomorrow.
Here is your program, or something similar to it:
...
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39
votes
Accepted
What does it mean for a random number generator to be cryptographically secure?
What are the criteria that make an RNG cryptographically secure?
In short, a DRBG [deterministic random bit generator] is formally considered computationally secure if a computationally-limited ...
- 10.7k
36
votes
Can I encrypt a message by swapping bits in the text?
First problem is you're not specifying at all how many swaps you need to do for a given message length, other than saying it's "several." For an $n$-bit messsage there are $n!$ ways of rearranging its ...
- 14k
35
votes
Cryptography's random number problem?
The title of this article is complete hype. Tip: when a journalist says “X could solve Y”, read “X probably won't solve Y”. Much of the content of the article is hype too.
Cryptography has a random ...
35
votes
Accepted
Can we assume that a hash function with high collision resistance also means a highly uniform distribution?
Define $H(x) = \operatorname{SHA-256}(x) \mathbin\| 1$; that is, append a single 1 bit to SHA-256. Can you find a collision under $H$? Does $H$ have anything resembling uniform distribution?
This ...
34
votes
Why is the output of a True Random Number Generator (TRNG) insecure after it has been compressed?
I think you're misinterpreting the source. The source says the TRNGs "rely" on compression (a cryptographic hash would be the compression function, or possibly some simpler function to ...
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33
votes
Accepted
Why are PRNG in programming languages not cryptographically secure by default?
First, insecure PRNGs are typically faster than CSPRNGs. CSPRNGs based on /dev/urandom (if you're familiar with Linux), for example, have to call the crypto kernel module driver every time. For ...
- 476
32
votes
Accepted
A website that identifies an RNG from its output
A colleague of mine told me about a website that, given a sufficient quantity of output from an PRNG, had been able to deduce which application the PRNG was from.
As you correctly identified this ...
- 44.7k
31
votes
Why do some people believe that humans are "bad at" generating random numbers/characters like this?
For me, the fraud-related applications of Benford's Law come to mind. When people make up data they tend to create overly uniform data, even when it's not appropriate. There's a definite psychology ...
- 1,189
28
votes
A website that identifies an RNG from its output
One tool that tries to do this is untwister. It's almost certainly not the tool you were thinking of, though, as it cannot determine if the output came from OpenSSL specifically.
It can determine ...
- 381
26
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between TRNG and CSPRNG?
A True Random Number Generator uses a physical phenomenon not known to be fully deterministic as origin of the discrete values (bits or integer numbers) that it outputs. That phenomenon can for ...
- 125k
26
votes
What is the practical impact of using System.Random which is not cryptographically random?
From what you have described, it sounds like your system works as follows:
Consult the system clock to find a 32-bit seed $s$.
Use System.Random to generate a ...
26
votes
Accepted
Can we use a Cryptographic hash function to generate infinite random numbers?
This construction gives you cryptographic-quality pseudorandom output, but it isn't as secure as it can be for a random generator.
With commonly used hash functions $H$ (such as any of the SHA2 and ...
26
votes
Accepted
The GCD strikes back to RSA in 2019 - Good randomness is the only solution?
The solution is simply to make sure that you have good randomness. At the size of the numbers we are considering, the probability of a repeat when using good randomness is extremely small. To make ...
- 27k
23
votes
Accepted
Is it safe to seed a random number generator from system time?
Yes, it is unsafe to seed a PRNG with only with the system time. No, that's not all Bouncy Castle's SecureRandom does.
The ...
20
votes
Accepted
RFC6979: error in reference implementation?
The RFC specifies things in terms of bits. Each call to HMAC outputs hlen bits. tlen is the count of bits obtained so far; when ...
- 84.8k
19
votes
What is the difference between CSPRNG and PRNG?
The key element in the definition of a PRG is the observer (aka distinguisher, algorithm, test, etc) that the PRG is supposed to fool.
A statistical PRG fools a specific set of observers, whereas a ...
- 191
19
votes
Entropy of two concatenated random values
Even in context, much of what is written in the blog post makes no sense. E.g., it says:
While it can be argued that the DRNG is in reality just splitting a 128-bit value into two pieces and ...
- 5,662
19
votes
Accepted
Where do Windows applications get entropy from?
Update: Since I wrote this post, CryptGenRandom has been deprecated. Apparently it is now recommended to use BCryptGenRandom ...
- 31.3k
19
votes
Accepted
Why does BCRYPT_RNG_DUAL_EC_ALGORITHM get removed from CNG API on Windows 10?
The Government's elliptic curve backdoor is real, isn't it?
We don't know for sure, but there are indicators into that direction. More importantly though,
yes, you can backdoor the RNG, as was ...
- 44.7k
19
votes
Accepted
Is openssl rand command cryptographically secure?
Yes, it is cryptographically secure, pseudo random output, seeded by retrieving secure random data from the operating system.
If it is random or not depends on the fact if the OS RNG is random. This ...
- 85.8k
18
votes
Accepted
Mixing Entropy Sources by XOR?
If one source remains uncompromised plus statistically random on all bits, and both sources remain independent, then a xor of both sources together can also be ...
- 1,089
18
votes
What is the practical impact of using System.Random which is not cryptographically random?
The official documentation for System.Random explicitly says it should not be used for generating passwords. It’s predictable, and seeded only from the system clock. This means System.Random has at ...
- 2,217
18
votes
Why do some people believe that humans are "bad at" generating random numbers/characters like this?
Why would a dice rolled be "more random" than simply coming up with a
sequence in your head, and then changing some of them?
Humans have too many biases regarding what a random sequence is. ...
17
votes
What tests can I do to ensure my random number generator is working correctly?
What tests can I do to ensure my PRNG is working correctly?
That depends on what exactly you mean by “working correctly”.
You can do statistical tests to check for various statistical flaws your ...
- 17.4k
17
votes
Accepted
Does using modulo (%) affect quality of randomness?
Let me begin by saying that if you have a hardware source of randomness, you don't need to be stingy with it.
1) Does modulo affect the quality of randomness, faking in some way the distribution of ...
- 4,198
17
votes
Are there any practical ways to transfer random data securely?
Is it possible to securely transfer random values in such a way that they are still viable for use in cryptography?
Yes and this is done all the time.
If you use a TLS_RSA cipher suite, the client ...
- 31.3k
17
votes
What does it mean for a random number generator to be cryptographically secure?
I tried to use mostly non-jargon to make it more understandable than the current top answer.
What are the criteria that make an RNG cryptographically secure?
From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSPRNG:
...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible