If you are attempting to start an argument with me, you failed. I agree with you. This is where some very serious testing needs to be done on any solution where you are attempting to produce unique keys of any sort. Especially where real "randomness" is required. Hence why elsewhere in this thread I make reference to using system entropy as they do in PGP and GNUpg and other cryptographic products.

In 25 years of programming I have yet to see a truly random random number generator over a sufficiently large data set without the use of some external influence on the numbers being generated.

This of course gets back to the basic premise that using time() and friends to produce the id may not be very ideal even for the simplest of application.

However, I stand by my opinion that the degree of randomness you need is part of the design criteria you need to develop in your program specification and the criticality it has in relationship to the program you are writing and the data or transactions you are trying to protect. If I am generating unique IDS for sessions dealing with a guest book application (OK... so I'm exaggerating) then I am not going to worry too much about how random the key generation is. On the other hand if I am protecting national security data where lives are on the line then I am going to look to somebody like the NSA for guidance as to what the "latest and greatest" crypto algorithm is.

Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional
Peter at Berghold dot Net
   Dog trainer, dog agility exhibitor, brewer of fine Belgian style ales. Happiness is a warm, tired, contented dog curled up at your side and a good Belgian ale in your chalice.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Use time() to create unique ID by blue_cowdawg
in thread Use time() to create unique ID by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.