[Cryptography] Radioactive random numbers

Peter Gutmann pgut001 at cs.auckland.ac.nz
Thu Sep 12 03:14:15 EDT 2013


Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:

>Given that there is One True Source of randomness to wit radioactive
>emission, has anyone considered playing with old smoke detectors?
>
>The ionising types are being phased out in favour of optical (at least in
>Australia) so there must be heaps of them lying around.

If you're in Australia you don't need to use smoke detectors, you've got 
direct access to the real stuff.  I've used a lump of Australian uranium ore 
with my geiger counter in the past.  Problem is that this is hardly scalable.

Peter.


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