an_old_friend:

Perhaps spread spectrum is used by spies, who knows, or sat links--we will
always catch only the poorest of spies--undoubtedly they DO NOT represent the
"good ones."

But, most radio is a poor vector for spies, the internet is a much more viable
medium...

A true "random number generator" has escaped being ever realized in a practical
form. The "random noise" from the background radiation of the universe comes
very, very close.

In computing, if a very high quality "random number generator" is needed, it
will always be outboard (white noise generator.) No computer algorithm ever
developed is able to generate REAL random numbers. Success is only measured in
how close they can come to the ideal...

.... the "noise" from a large number of typists keyboards might be close enough,
although not perfectly random, for some applications...

John

"an old friend" wrote in message
oups.com...
cuting here from another thread not disputing you but you have a
reference for the below ad not heard it and wanted to follow up on it


Hold up example: The late Colonel Rudolph Abel of the KGB, under
a cover name as an "artist" with a "hobby of amateur radio"
operating in NYC around the late 1950s-early 1960s. His HF radio
was used to send-receive encrypted information from the KGB. He
was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers, the missle-shot-down pilot
of a U-2. Abel used "one-time pads" for encipherment, virtually
unbreakable by anything since the encryption key was obtained from
natural random noise (or of "noisy" KGB clerk-typists)(take your
pick).


It's irrelevant whether Abel actually held any sort of amateur
radio license (he probably had a cover for one, no details on
that) but that was his cover excuse for having/using an HF radio
when arrested. Amateur radio in espionage activities! Not a
good PR thing but so long ago that most have forgotten it or
never knew.


The