[boost] Re: Proposal: random number library

From: Reid Sweatman (borderland_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-02-22 07:27:13

It may whiff of crypto, but I don't think anyone (even the NSA, although who
knows? <g>) could legitimately claim that a PRNG routine fell under the
Munitions Act, since crypto is hardly the only thing that requires good
PRNG's.  Were that the case, it would be illegal to export Quake Arena
(Brazil notwithstanding <g>).

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jmaurer_at_[hidden] [mailto:jmaurer_at_[hidden]]On
> Behalf Of Jens Maurer
> Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 6:00 PM
> To: boost_at_[hidden]
> Subject: [boost] Re: Proposal: random number library
>
>
> Greg Colvin wrote:
> > I've noticed that if your clock() function is fast enough you get
> > no entropy at all, no matter how high you set nbits, and if it's
> > slow enough you can get away with nbits < 8.
> [...]
> > I also made a Win32-specific version that has the virtue of not
> > tying up the CPU so much:
> [...]
>
> It looks like I have opened a can of worms with class random_device
> in random.hpp.
>
> It looks like it's highly platform-dependent stuff.  If it smells
> like cryptography, it may not be without legal restrictions in some
> countries.
>
> All in all, I think I should remove it from random.hpp, copy the
> code & documentation over to a new docvault directory crypt_random
> and check out the Yarrow algorithm.
> However, I've only got Linux, so I am not very well suited for
> platform-specific development.
>
> Jens Maurer.
>
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