entropy depletion

[John Denker]

Jerrold Leichter asked:
> 
> .... random number generator this way. ....  Just what *is*
> good enough?

That's a good question.  I think there is a good answer.  It
sheds light on the distinction of pseudorandomness versus
entropy:

   A long string produced by a good PRNG is conditionally
   compressible in the sense that we know there exists a shorter
   representation, but at the same time we believe it to be
   conditionally incompressible in the sense that the adversaries
   have no feasible way of finding a shorter representation.

In contrast,

   A long string produced by a HESG is unconditionally, absolutely
   incompressible. There does not exist a shorter representation.
   There cannot possibly exist a shorter representation.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com