[Cryptography] immortal quote about randomness

[John Denker]

On 05/22/2016 06:18 PM, Kent Borg wrote:
> Dammit, I can neither remember nor find that quote about how using a
> deterministic process to make up random numbers is against nature, or
> grace, or the universe. Like I say, I can't find it.


  ``Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing
   random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.  For, as has been
   pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random
   number -- there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a
   strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.''

		John von Neumann,
		``Various Techniques Used in Connection With Random Digits''
		page 36 in _Monte Carlo Method_
		proceedings of a symposium held June 29 -- July, 1, 1949
		A.S. Householder, G.E. Forsythe, and H.H. Germond (eds.)
		Institute for Numerical Analysis (published 1951)


Actually it's a twofer.  I use the second sentence more
often than the first.  Here's my version:

	There's no such thing as a random number.
	If it's random, it's not a number.
	If it's a number, it's not random.
	You can have a random distribution over numbers,
	but then the randomness is in the distribution,
	not in any particular number that may have been
	drawn from such a distribution.