Collaborate Disseminate
Hackers love random numbers, or more accurately, the pursuit of them. It turns out that computers are so good at following our exacting instructions that they are largely incapable of …read more Continue reading Random Number Generator is a Blast from the Past
Generating random numbers might seem like a trivial task, that is until the numbers need to be truly random for cryptography or security reasons. When that’s the case, it turns …read more Continue reading Dice Rolls From the Beginning of Time
Computers are known to be precise and — usually — repeatable. That’s why it is so hard to get something that seems random out of them. Yet random things are great for games, encryption, and multimedia. Who wants the same order of a playlist or slide show every time?
It …read more
Gosh, the fun we had when digital calculators became affordable enough that mere grade school students could bring one to class. The discovery that the numbers could be construed as the letters of various dirty words when viewed upside down was the source of endless mirth. They were simpler times. …read more
Continue reading Random Word Pairings Mark The Time On This Unusual Clock
The password ‘ji32k7au4a83’ looks pretty random and feels as though it should be unique – read this article to find out why it’s neither! Continue reading Serious Security: When randomness isn’t – and why it matters
It’s 1337 times better than /dev/random, which means it will bring a smile to any sysadmin’s face. (Warning: requires scissors.) Continue reading Our FREE #SysAdminDay gift means you need NEVER code in Python again!
Twitter is kind of a crazy place. World leaders doing verbal battle, hashtags that rise and fall along with the social climate, and a never ending barrage of cat pictures all make for a tumultuous stream of consciousness that runs 24/7. What exactly we’re supposed to do with this information is still up to debate, as Twitter has yet to turn it into a profitable service after over a decade of operation. Still, it’s a grand experiment that offers a rare glimpse into the human hive-mind for anyone brave enough to dive in.
One such explorer is a security researcher …read more
Twitter is kind of a crazy place. World leaders doing verbal battle, hashtags that rise and fall along with the social climate, and a never ending barrage of cat pictures all make for a tumultuous stream of consciousness that runs 24/7. What exactly we’re supposed to do with this information is still up to debate, as Twitter has yet to turn it into a profitable service after over a decade of operation. Still, it’s a grand experiment that offers a rare glimpse into the human hive-mind for anyone brave enough to dive in.
One such explorer is a security researcher …read more
Let’s start off with one of my favorite quotes from John von Neumann: “Any one 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.”
What von Neumann is getting at is that the “pseudo” in pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) is really a synonym for “not at all”. Granted, if you come in the middle of …read more
Continue reading What is Entropy and How Do I Get More of It?
Security researchers discovered that the pseudorandom number generator that underpins cryptographic operations in Fortinet appliances and products from other 11 other vendors rendered encrypted traffic vulnerable to snooping for years. The affected pro… Continue reading PRNG Weakness Reflects Poorly on Government Crypto Certification