combining entropy

[Ben Laurie]

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 12:40 PM, IanG <iang at systemics.com> wrote:
> Jonathan Katz wrote:
>> I think it depends on what you mean by "N pools of entropy".
>
>
> I can see that my description was a bit weak, yes.  Here's a better
> view, incorporating the feedback:
>
>   If I have N people, each with a single pool of entropy,
>   and I pool each of their contributions together with XOR,
>   is that as good as it gets?

I think you need to define what you mean by "as good as it gets".
Clearly XOR loses entropy that might be there, so on the measure of
"good == most entropy", it is not.

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