Random numbers (emphasis on seeding the number)
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I suspect this has been posted before (in fact I'm sure it has) but it is relevant: Random Number[^]
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
OriginalGriff wrote:
I suspect this has been posted before (in fact I'm sure it has) but it is relevant
heheh I love how the entire CP lounge is now walking on eggshells so as not to get crucified for a repost... :laugh:
"... having only that moment finished a vigorous game of Wiff-Waff and eaten a tartiflet." - Henry Minute "...who gives a tinker's cuss?" - Dalek Dave "Let's face it, after Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says WTF!" - gavindon It's plain that they do not yet know what true fear really is. - JSOP 2011
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Chris Losinger wrote:
then i just need to read the same image stream you do, before you do it, and i can predict your number stream.
or, i can take over that image stream and feed it images that will control your number stream.but the algorithm...you don't know. The image dump is constantly being refreshed and manipulated by members, every second. it would be impossible for you to do this...in this scenario...I would think. you could feed images all day and night, I'm going to pick the next image (which is a random image) and carry on the process. [edit] the image I grab is the next one in the cue, whether it is your image or 500K others.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Slacker007 wrote:
but the algorithm...you don't know.
as you've described, it's: 1. get an image from a stream. 2. use its dimensions as the seed to a random number generator. so i need to find: 1. your stream (sniff your IP traffic) 2. which random number generator you're using. (try all the common random number generators)
Slacker007 wrote:
the image I grab is the next one in the cue, whether it is your image or 500K others.
if i want control bad enough, all of them will be my images. and you won't know it. but, your scheme already depends on you having a random number generator. so, if you don't trust rand(time()), get a better RNG. that's much easier than creating a machine to generate random seeds.
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Slacker007 wrote:
but the algorithm...you don't know.
as you've described, it's: 1. get an image from a stream. 2. use its dimensions as the seed to a random number generator. so i need to find: 1. your stream (sniff your IP traffic) 2. which random number generator you're using. (try all the common random number generators)
Slacker007 wrote:
the image I grab is the next one in the cue, whether it is your image or 500K others.
if i want control bad enough, all of them will be my images. and you won't know it. but, your scheme already depends on you having a random number generator. so, if you don't trust rand(time()), get a better RNG. that's much easier than creating a machine to generate random seeds.
all great points but how would you know what my random number is, this second? You are assuming that you have control over everything I see and do. Have you ever seen an image dump, such as 4chan? How would you control that?
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
A thought came to me today about random seed generation. I googlied a bit but found nothing (using image data)...still could be there. You have a series of images. you count the pixels and use that as your random seed. Delete the image. The images are constantly being replenished by new images of all shapes and sizes and formats from the internet or scanned in or whatever. I would "think", that if the images were gathered...at random...with no care at all, the seed value would be random and not predictable. I am not a crypto guru so you can laugh all you want. :)
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)It's not to far off. Moren random generators used for cryptography accumulate "randomness" from a variety of sources, and are rather resilent against injection of non-random data. For diving into a confusingly fascinating read, see maybe start here[^].
FILETIME to time_t
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy -
I suspect this has been posted before (in fact I'm sure it has) but it is relevant: Random Number[^]
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
Twice a day - it's getting out of hand.
FILETIME to time_t
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchy -
all great points but how would you know what my random number is, this second? You are assuming that you have control over everything I see and do. Have you ever seen an image dump, such as 4chan? How would you control that?
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Slacker007 wrote:
all great points but how would you know what my random number is, this second?
maybe i can't. but if there's no way i can know it, you might not need a super-complex cryptographically-secure RNG. no need to protect yourself from something that's impossible, after all. so, i've been assuming i can know it.
Slacker007 wrote:
You are assuming that you have control over everything I see and do. Have you ever seen an image dump, such as 4chan?
sure. but what if i redirect your IP traffic to my own servers when you pull your images ?
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Slacker007 wrote:
all great points but how would you know what my random number is, this second?
maybe i can't. but if there's no way i can know it, you might not need a super-complex cryptographically-secure RNG. no need to protect yourself from something that's impossible, after all. so, i've been assuming i can know it.
Slacker007 wrote:
You are assuming that you have control over everything I see and do. Have you ever seen an image dump, such as 4chan?
sure. but what if i redirect your IP traffic to my own servers when you pull your images ?
Chris Losinger wrote:
but what if i redirect your HTTP requests to my own servers when you pull your images ?
I'm not a web dev but I'm sure there would be a tell that I could right code for to handle this. The second you redirect, my system goes dark and locks up. Just a thought.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
It's not to far off. Moren random generators used for cryptography accumulate "randomness" from a variety of sources, and are rather resilent against injection of non-random data. For diving into a confusingly fascinating read, see maybe start here[^].
FILETIME to time_t
| FoldWithUs! | sighist | WhoIncludes - Analyzing C++ include file hierarchyyeah but there are so many warnings and tags for this article that question it's origins, purpose, and authenticity that I have to suspect it completely.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
Vark111 wrote:
But how would you seed the random generator to pick the random image?
you wouldn't. the random image is determined by the internet users of the world. Think image dumps such as 4chan.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
A thought came to me today about random seed generation. I googlied a bit but found nothing (using image data)...still could be there. You have a series of images. you count the pixels and use that as your random seed. Delete the image. The images are constantly being replenished by new images of all shapes and sizes and formats from the internet or scanned in or whatever. I would "think", that if the images were gathered...at random...with no care at all, the seed value would be random and not predictable. I am not a crypto guru so you can laugh all you want. :)
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
The capacity is limited to only three numbers (2,3 and 6). How's that random? ;P
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra] posting about Crystal Reports here is like discussing gay marriage on a catholic church’s website.[Nishant Sivakumar]
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Slacker007 wrote:
I would "think", that if the images were gathered...at random
So you generate a random number based on gathering images randomly from some source. Do you see any circles there?
jschell wrote:
Do you see any circles there?
do you because I don't. The images are random by nature. I don't create the randomness in that, the internet does. I use that natural randomness of the images to seed my random number. The only thing I am creating is the final random number.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
A thought came to me today about random seed generation. I googlied a bit but found nothing (using image data)...still could be there. You have a series of images. you count the pixels and use that as your random seed. Delete the image. The images are constantly being replenished by new images of all shapes and sizes and formats from the internet or scanned in or whatever. I would "think", that if the images were gathered...at random...with no care at all, the seed value would be random and not predictable. I am not a crypto guru so you can laugh all you want. :)
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)I don't understand why you are obtaining a random value and then using it as a seed. If you have your random value just scale it appropriately. But the real problem is you did not find a random value. You found what appears to be random (in some cases). Your results would deffinately skew at certain times. The key to generating a true random value is the sampling. The reason for this is you can not prove any real world cases of randomness. And even if somehow you proved something existed randomly, you would still have to be able to randomly sample it, because even random sequences can have partial patterns. This is even more true when it comes to Analog to Digital conversion, because it is broken down into patterns (Fourier Series), so false patterns are created in even true random numbers.
023407430812063204Random number is next.0323017302120932You can guess the next number right? So what is a perfect random generator? Well it in a way is like a perfect engine. It simply can't exist. You can get closer and closer and closer. But someone else can get closer and break the encryption predicting your value.Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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Chris Losinger wrote:
then i just need to read the same image stream you do, before you do it, and i can predict your number stream.
or, i can take over that image stream and feed it images that will control your number stream.but the algorithm...you don't know. The image dump is constantly being refreshed and manipulated by members, every second. it would be impossible for you to do this...in this scenario...I would think. you could feed images all day and night, I'm going to pick the next image (which is a random image) and carry on the process. [edit] the image I grab is the next one in the cue, whether it is your image or 500K others.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Slacker007 wrote:
but the algorithm...you don't know.
A key point of the strongest algorithms out there is that the way they work is immaterial. The strength, and security, is in the randomness of the source. Any two people picking the same image must, by definition, be generating the same key. BTW how will your Bob know which image you are using to generate the key?
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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I don't understand why you are obtaining a random value and then using it as a seed. If you have your random value just scale it appropriately. But the real problem is you did not find a random value. You found what appears to be random (in some cases). Your results would deffinately skew at certain times. The key to generating a true random value is the sampling. The reason for this is you can not prove any real world cases of randomness. And even if somehow you proved something existed randomly, you would still have to be able to randomly sample it, because even random sequences can have partial patterns. This is even more true when it comes to Analog to Digital conversion, because it is broken down into patterns (Fourier Series), so false patterns are created in even true random numbers.
023407430812063204Random number is next.0323017302120932You can guess the next number right? So what is a perfect random generator? Well it in a way is like a perfect engine. It simply can't exist. You can get closer and closer and closer. But someone else can get closer and break the encryption predicting your value.Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
If you have your random value just scale it appropriately.
good point. I have thought of this. If you pick your image from a random line up on the net, then your data would be random. I have no control of the seed value; it is random. It is not derived from a function or time or anything. For all I know, the image is of someone passed out on the floor and was uploaded by a horny teenager. who knows, it's completely random. My understanding of the meaning of random is that it happens naturally. I have no control over what value I grab at any given second of the day.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
Slacker007 wrote:
but the algorithm...you don't know.
A key point of the strongest algorithms out there is that the way they work is immaterial. The strength, and security, is in the randomness of the source. Any two people picking the same image must, by definition, be generating the same key. BTW how will your Bob know which image you are using to generate the key?
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
Nagy Vilmos wrote:
Any two people picking the same image must, by definition, be generating the same key.
No two people would ever pick the same image. You would have no idea what image I am grabbing because, I don't even know the image I am grabbing. Do see my replys about image dumps such as 4chan. The randomness of the images is based on the natural random selection process of the internet. I feel that the internet has become as random as nature itself. Out there, I know, but thoughts that this old mind thinks about from time to time.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
If you have your random value just scale it appropriately.
good point. I have thought of this. If you pick your image from a random line up on the net, then your data would be random. I have no control of the seed value; it is random. It is not derived from a function or time or anything. For all I know, the image is of someone passed out on the floor and was uploaded by a horny teenager. who knows, it's completely random. My understanding of the meaning of random is that it happens naturally. I have no control over what value I grab at any given second of the day.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Slacker007 wrote:
For all I know, the image is of someone passed out on the floor and was uploaded by a horny teenager. who knows, it's completely random.
That is someone the point. You have no control over it. That however does not make it random. Take the traditionally used seed, the clock. Certainly not random. However it makes for a great seed to generate psuedo randomness. To crack it is easy of course. As it is based off a known cyclical behavior, is are most random generators. They are not random in their source but actually how they sample. Your source is by no means random. Think of it this way, most people of specific age groups use the internet at their convenient times. Has to do with how each age group lives their lives etc. It is by no means random though. For example in your time zone at 2AM the probability of finding a person of age 50 online is lower than finding someone of age 22. (I am just assuming this but hopefully you see the point). The same is true for types of people. A person at 2AM will be accessing one image where as someone at 2PM will likely access a different type of image. I am not saying I know the pattern. I am saying there is deffinately one there, you just don't see it right now. A computer however will find it, eventually.
Slacker007 wrote:
My understanding of the meaning of random is that it happens naturally. I have no control over what value I grab at any given second of the day.
It does not happen naturally. It simply does not happen. We live in a world of cause and effect. If something 'appears' to be random, you are missing some data points.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
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Slacker007 wrote:
For all I know, the image is of someone passed out on the floor and was uploaded by a horny teenager. who knows, it's completely random.
That is someone the point. You have no control over it. That however does not make it random. Take the traditionally used seed, the clock. Certainly not random. However it makes for a great seed to generate psuedo randomness. To crack it is easy of course. As it is based off a known cyclical behavior, is are most random generators. They are not random in their source but actually how they sample. Your source is by no means random. Think of it this way, most people of specific age groups use the internet at their convenient times. Has to do with how each age group lives their lives etc. It is by no means random though. For example in your time zone at 2AM the probability of finding a person of age 50 online is lower than finding someone of age 22. (I am just assuming this but hopefully you see the point). The same is true for types of people. A person at 2AM will be accessing one image where as someone at 2PM will likely access a different type of image. I am not saying I know the pattern. I am saying there is deffinately one there, you just don't see it right now. A computer however will find it, eventually.
Slacker007 wrote:
My understanding of the meaning of random is that it happens naturally. I have no control over what value I grab at any given second of the day.
It does not happen naturally. It simply does not happen. We live in a world of cause and effect. If something 'appears' to be random, you are missing some data points.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.
if an apple falls from the tree in spot a versus spot b, is that random? I view random as an act that happens where you have no control what is going to happen. In my case, I know I'm going to grab an image right this second but I have no idea what image I'm going to get. How is that not random? Even if you slipped me the image, I'm grabbing it at random. A computer can't find this pattern because the pattern does not exist. If you reach into a hat full of coins and you pull out one coin, wasn't finding that coin random? Was there a pattern there. I don't think so but who knows.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
If something 'appears' to be random, you are missing some data points.
I don't believe this. Even though I love the Matrix movie.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) -
if an apple falls from the tree in spot a versus spot b, is that random? I view random as an act that happens where you have no control what is going to happen. In my case, I know I'm going to grab an image right this second but I have no idea what image I'm going to get. How is that not random? Even if you slipped me the image, I'm grabbing it at random. A computer can't find this pattern because the pattern does not exist. If you reach into a hat full of coins and you pull out one coin, wasn't finding that coin random? Was there a pattern there. I don't think so but who knows.
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
If something 'appears' to be random, you are missing some data points.
I don't believe this. Even though I love the Matrix movie.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)Slacker007 wrote:
if an apple falls from the tree in spot a versus spot b, is that random?
Not at all. There were many variables that make it difficult to predict. But we humans can even make a decent prediction. If the apple is on the north side it is unlikely it will land on the south side. To predict exactly where you need all variables. However you get closer and closer by simply adding more. The apple stem strenth, which is the product of billions of other variables (food, weather, genetics etc etc). The active weather such as wind and rain. The height of the apple and of course the actually ground material and lay out. These are just some (obviously) of the billions and billions of variables. I of course can not calculate exactly where it will land. But if it were possible to monitor all of these inputs one could predict the exact location. But as I said, one need only monitor enough to predict and they will statistically get it right.
Slacker007 wrote:
I view random as an act that happens where you have no control what is going to happen. In my case, I know I'm going to grab an image right this second but I have no idea what image I'm going to get. How is that not random? Even if you slipped me the image, I'm grabbing it at random.
Actually random is quite the opposite. It is requiring full control. By having full control you can create psuedo randomness. If you do not have full control, then your randomness is merely a miss-conception. You could have completely biased results and be non the wiser.
Slacker007 wrote:
A computer can't find this pattern because the pattern does not exist. If you reach into a hat full of coins and you pull out one coin, wasn't finding that coin random? Was there a pattern there. I don't think so but who knows.
But a pattern does exist, again you just are unaware of it. If the hat had all nickels in it there was no randomness to you picking a nickel vs a dime. If the hat had even the exact same amount of nickels as dimes there is still a higher probability of picking a nickel, as a nickel is bigger. It is therefore not random. Then most importantly, because you reliquished control it is possible that the hat has only one coin.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are ab
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Slacker007 wrote:
if an apple falls from the tree in spot a versus spot b, is that random?
Not at all. There were many variables that make it difficult to predict. But we humans can even make a decent prediction. If the apple is on the north side it is unlikely it will land on the south side. To predict exactly where you need all variables. However you get closer and closer by simply adding more. The apple stem strenth, which is the product of billions of other variables (food, weather, genetics etc etc). The active weather such as wind and rain. The height of the apple and of course the actually ground material and lay out. These are just some (obviously) of the billions and billions of variables. I of course can not calculate exactly where it will land. But if it were possible to monitor all of these inputs one could predict the exact location. But as I said, one need only monitor enough to predict and they will statistically get it right.
Slacker007 wrote:
I view random as an act that happens where you have no control what is going to happen. In my case, I know I'm going to grab an image right this second but I have no idea what image I'm going to get. How is that not random? Even if you slipped me the image, I'm grabbing it at random.
Actually random is quite the opposite. It is requiring full control. By having full control you can create psuedo randomness. If you do not have full control, then your randomness is merely a miss-conception. You could have completely biased results and be non the wiser.
Slacker007 wrote:
A computer can't find this pattern because the pattern does not exist. If you reach into a hat full of coins and you pull out one coin, wasn't finding that coin random? Was there a pattern there. I don't think so but who knows.
But a pattern does exist, again you just are unaware of it. If the hat had all nickels in it there was no randomness to you picking a nickel vs a dime. If the hat had even the exact same amount of nickels as dimes there is still a higher probability of picking a nickel, as a nickel is bigger. It is therefore not random. Then most importantly, because you reliquished control it is possible that the hat has only one coin.
Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are ab
Collin Jasnoch wrote:
But a pattern does exist, again you just are unaware of it.
I know where you are going with this...I think. However, if your theory is correct then we could predict precisely when each of us die and when someone kills...based on patterns of course.
Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011)
