[Cryptography] NIST Randomness Beacon

[Philip Gladstone]

On 11/10/13 2:48 AM, jd.cypherpunks at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> surely someone here has an opinion...
>>
>> http://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/ct/nist_beacon.cfm
>>
>> :-)
>>
> Sure. No trust in NIST no more.
> Thanks.
> --Michael
>
>
Indeed. Why would anyone believe that the output is unpredictable? For 
all we know, they could have generated all the "random" values for the 
next 20 years and already sold them to someone.

The only way of preventing this is to mix in something that really 
cannot be known before the critical instant (DJIA, most recent spin on 
20 roulette wheels at Caesar's Palace, etc).

Philip