sample program

use strict;
use warnings;
use HotBits;

my $x= new HotBits::;
my $bits= $x->request (16);  # parameter is bytes to fetch, up to 2048
+.
print length($bits)," bytes: ";
print unpack("H*", $bits), "\n";
[download]

HotBits.pm

=head1 NAME B<HotBits> - download hardware random numbers

=head1 AUTHOR  John M. Dlugosz - john@dlugosz.com - http://www.dlugosz
+.com

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This module will access "genuine" random numbers via http://www.fourmi
+lab.ch/hotbits/.
This server at Fourmilab in Switzerland uses radioactive decay to offe
+r the truest random
number source possible.  This module works the same as the site's Java
+ class for the same
purpose: access the CGI program via HTTP.

=cut

package HotBits;

use strict;
use warnings;
our $VERSION= v1.0;
require LWP::UserAgent;
use Carp;

my $serverURL='http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Hotbits';

sub new
 {
 my $class= shift;
 my $URL= shift || $serverURL;  # optional argument
 my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent::;
 $ua->env_proxy();
 my $self= bless {
    ua => $ua,
    URL => $URL
    }, $class;
 return $self;
 }

sub request
 {
 my ($self, $count)= @_;
 $count ||= 128;
 my $request = HTTP::Request->new('GET', "$self->{URL}?nbytes=$count&f
+mt=bin");
 $request->proxy_authorization_basic($ENV{HTTP_proxy_user}, $ENV{HTTP_
+proxy_pass})  if $ENV{HTTP_proxy_user};
 my $response = $self->{ua}->request($request);
 croak "Error from $self->{URL}", if ($response->code() != 200);
 croak "Unexpected return (not binary) from $self->{URL}" if $response
+->headers()->content_type() ne "application/octet-stream";
 return $response->content();
 }

1; # module loaded OK.
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