🚀 go-pugleaf

In sci.crypt, article <Lw7LXB1w164w@jwt.UUCP>,
  bbs-hrick@jwt.UUCP writes:
> > > I am looking for good ideas for real random number generation.   I've heard
>  
> How would this work... take the least significant bit from each
> byte of traffic in a Usenet newsgroup?

I'd assume that English text has some redundancy in the lowest bits when
ASCIIized. Thus, not 100% random given a suitable definition of that word.

You could grab each article and create its MD5 signature. You'd probably
have to be somewhat imaginative so that knowledge of the sequence of
articles arriving at your machine won't reveal the random number.

-- 
Life's too short, but if you go fast enough, you can live
        it one-and-a-half times.
-- 
Matthias Urlichs  --  urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de   /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 -- 7500 Karlsruhe 1 -- Germany  --  +49-721-9612521     \o)/