in reply to Best random number

It's certainly not rand(). Don't use rand() for anything that needs cryptographic-quality random numbers.

On some *nix systems, you have /dev/random. Newer Intel (but not AMD, AFAIK) processor's have a hardware RNG in the CPU. Since you mentioned XP, I'm assuming you need a cross-platform solution. You might want to take a look at what GnuPG does.

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Re: Re: Best random number
by kjd (Acolyte) on Dec 19, 2002 at 16:56 UTC
    It is part of the Intel i8x0 chipsets, not integrated directly into the CPU (afaik). AMD's 768 chipset also has a RNG. These are supposedly seeded based on thermal noise detected by the chip. I've seen these mentioned in kernel config for both Linux and FreeBSD previously, but I'm not sure what level of support exists.
Re: Re: Best random number
by fglock (Vicar) on Dec 19, 2002 at 19:25 UTC