[Cryptography] Radioactive random numbers

[Perry E. Metzger]

On Wed, 11 Sep 2013 17:06:00 -0700 Tony Arcieri <bascule at gmail.com>
wrote:
> It seems like Intel's approach of using thermal noise is fairly
> sound. Is there any reason why it isn't more widely adopted?

Actually, I think things like this mostly have been missing
because manufacturers didn't understand they were important. Even
the Raspberry Pi now has an SoC with a hardware RNG.

In addition to getting CPU makers to always include such things,
however, a second vital problem is how to gain trust that such RNGs
are good -- both that a particular unit isn't subject to a hardware
defect and that the design wasn't sabotaged. That's harder to do.

Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com