Newsgroups: sci.crypt
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From: karn@chicago.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)

Subject: Re: generating one-time pads
Message-ID: <1992Jun19.074305.11826@qualcomm.com>
Keywords: one-time pad, generation of
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Organization: Qualcomm, Inc
References:  
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1992 07:43:05 GMT
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In article  bill@hacktic.nl (Bill Squire) writes:
>em@topgun.ucsb.edu (Mehlschau;Ed;;;;CCSE;CCSE-Staff;990630;;;CCSE-Operations;50 0 writes:
>> No jokes about audio DAC's connected to radios tuned to unused
>> parts of the spectrum please...  :->
>> 
>Whats wrong with that method?

Yes, what *is* wrong with that method? If you're careful, it can
certainly produce good random numbers.

You know it's getting easier all the time to find off the shelf
hardware to do these sorts of things. Recently I bought a Media Vision
ProAudio 16 sound card for my PC. It includes stereo 44.1 Khz *16* bit
(i.e., CD quality) A/D and D/A converters. I bought it at Fry's
Electronics so I paid more than I should have, but it was still only
about $270.

Connect one of these things up to an FM receiver and digitize some
noise and I'm sure you could extract some high quality random numbers
from the low-order bits of the noise samples.

Phil