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

From: an old friend on Jul 29, 10:17 am

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.

================================================== ===============

For a couple references on the above, the best one I have
is David Kahn's "CODEBREAKERS, A History of Cryptography,"
a non-fiction best-seller of the 1960s. Been reprinted in
soft-cover a couple times, once in hard-cover. Libraries
would have it. A couple inches thick in hard-cover. The
next reference is Francis Gary Powers' own biography. All
of that happened during President Eisenhower's term over 40
years ago...at the time an embarrassment to the United States
due to Eisenhower not admitting it at first. Headline stuff
then, much press. A search of "Rudolph Abel" will turn up
more on the 'web. Search also "one-time pads" for the
method of encryption/decryption.

The U-2 itself was made, but not fully assembled at Building
82 of Lockheed at (then) Burbank, CA, airport. It was a
large hangar-plus-office-space building just off of Winona
Avenue crossing the major north-south street of Hollywood
Way in the east San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
Building 82 was referred to as "the Skunk Works" in reference
to the "Lil Abner" comic strip and a local Burbank plastics
factory nearby that used to emit stinky smells (long since
moved). Heavy security outside but the building was in plain
view (along with the building number sign) for many years to
drivers on Hollywood Way. The Skunk Works was moved to
Palmdale in the high desert years ago and all Lockheed
Aircraft buildings have been razed at what is now Bob Hope
Airport (formerly Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport). I've
never worked for Lockheed but have worked for a couple
contractors who supplied avionics for Lockheed, desitined
for installation in some Skunk Works program (which ranges
from the original P-80 Shooting Star through the U-2 and
through the SR-71 Blackbird and on into part of the F-22
engineering, plus a few smaller ones). As far as I know,
many details of what went on at the Skunk Works and its
aircraft are still "sensitive" even though lots of
information on them have been made public.

By the way, both the CIA and NSA have virtual museums on the
Internet and considerable text on various newsworthy cases
of espionage of the last 70+ years. There's also a history
of military intelligence found at the Fort Huachuca, AZ,
website. Fort Huachuca is the M.I. training center and also
the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) "flight school." It's
also the LAST place where the U.S. government teaches morse
code cognition as part of military intelligence electronic
intercept military occupation specialty training (four
different categories), all branches plus civilian government
workers. Needless to say, the morse code classes (all done
by computer programs now) are NOT a large part of the M.I.
school curriculum.

dit dit

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

From: John Smith on Jul 29, 1:12 pm

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...

Ahem...those "number stations" on HF aren't for sports scores or
lottery numbers... :-)

A true "random number generator" has escaped being ever realized in a practical
form.

Untrue, John. PRSG (Pseudo-Random Sequence Generators) have been
in common use in both communications and instrumentation for about
three decades now. Using just 9 standard digital logic packages
with a 10 MHz clock, the PRSG I built for instrumentation would
not repeat until 913 years had passed. Reference: Electronics
Designer's Casebook Number 3, a collection of Electronics
magazine articles published between February '78 and January '79.
I was the author of that. "Electronics" magazine was a bi-weekly
industry/subscription periodical published by McGraw-Hill; McGraw
Hill morphed it into four separate monthlies.

The "random noise" from the background radiation of the universe comes
very, very close.

No, does NOT "come close," that IS the definition of random.

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...

Sigh. PERIODICITY is at question? I would say that a repeat
period of a century or more is pretty dang good. Periodicity
greater than that is found in the DES and some of the algorithms
at the NSA.

SOME finite periodicity is NECESSARY to set code keys and thus
enabling a decode to start to prepare to get ready to begin.
That just cannot be done with true random noise thingies.

In some of the Swiss (formerly Swedish) Crypto AG products, a
true natural random noise source generates the random key
patterns for both encryption and decryption sequences. A
problem there is that the decrypt sequence MUST be identical
to the encrypt sequence and that decrypt sequence transported
to a recipient. With the DES and similar PRSG-driven
sequences, the decrypt key is NOT required to be sent
separately...all that is required is to set the sequence at
some pre-determined state (the "code key" enters that) and
this aligns the sequence with the received sequence...a sync
is possible and decrypt can proceed.

As to "simple algorithm" periodicity, a 913 year pattern
repeat at a 10 MHz clock is quite long. That was achieved
with a 2^33-1 sequence bit pattern Exclusive-ORed with a
2^25-1 bit pattern. Each of the individual PRSGs had NO
common factors in periodicity so they Ex-ORed to a pattern
of 2.88 x 10^17 clock periods. That could be implemented
on any PC (I did that just for funzies) with a 2 GHz clock
and sequence faster than the hardware version clock at
10 MHz. So that one repeated about every 100 years...

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

The humans-replacing-monkeys (at the KGB) was taken from
David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" and was a quote from
someone else.

Today, at this "late" hour of 5:15 PM PDT, thousands of
WLANs are very busy within RF range of one another, NOT
interfering with each other thanks to some clever and
longer PRSGs. All those WLANs can also synchronize with
one another should they have to start from power-down
condition.

Add to that the garage door openers which have a very short
data burst on an RF carrier...add millions more in remote
keyless entry automobile "watch fob" transmitters. Their
pattern security is so good that they CAN and HAVE replaced
mechanical counterparts in any environment. [yes, the auto
fob transmitters have keys attached as a security in case
the car battery goes kafooey...and for the mental/emotional
security of the numbnuts conservatives who don't trust those
new-fangled digital gizmos]

For pseudo-random number generation in theory, along with
tests on things therein being random, there are 155 pages
worth of good stuff in Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming," Chapter 3, Volume 2. I have the
three-volume set and will entertain any offers of
purchase (plus shipping costs)...provided I can trust
the buyer (this group doesn't ensure my trust much...).

bit bit

Len:

10mhz?
My gawd man, I can walk that fast!

I stand behind what I said, no perfect random number generators exist, if you
need a really good one--it can't be done with computer algorithms (but, the one
doing our lottery is a really **** poor one--probably worse than your "no
repeats for 913 year one @ 10mhz" even... grin

It most EXACTLY becomes a question of, "How good of a random number generator
do you need?"

I grant you, most apps do not need that good of one, games of chance in
reno/las vegas are ran off damn poor ones...

Also, if you read about egg at princeton.edu, you will see that computer random
number generators are really a bad idea, the human mind can influence
results... on some quantum-metaphysical level it seems the mind has powers
which we have only guessed about in fairy tales... I leave that to your
further research however...

Remember Len, we really do agree on most though... or, close enough...

John

wrote in message
ups.com...
From: John Smith on Jul 29, 1:12 pm

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...

Ahem...those "number stations" on HF aren't for sports scores or
lottery numbers... :-)

A true "random number generator" has escaped being ever realized in a
practical
form.

Untrue, John. PRSG (Pseudo-Random Sequence Generators) have been
in common use in both communications and instrumentation for about
three decades now. Using just 9 standard digital logic packages
with a 10 MHz clock, the PRSG I built for instrumentation would
not repeat until 913 years had passed. Reference: Electronics
Designer's Casebook Number 3, a collection of Electronics
magazine articles published between February '78 and January '79.
I was the author of that. "Electronics" magazine was a bi-weekly
industry/subscription periodical published by McGraw-Hill; McGraw
Hill morphed it into four separate monthlies.

The "random noise" from the background radiation of the universe comes
very, very close.

No, does NOT "come close," that IS the definition of random.

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...

Sigh. PERIODICITY is at question? I would say that a repeat
period of a century or more is pretty dang good. Periodicity
greater than that is found in the DES and some of the algorithms
at the NSA.

SOME finite periodicity is NECESSARY to set code keys and thus
enabling a decode to start to prepare to get ready to begin.
That just cannot be done with true random noise thingies.

In some of the Swiss (formerly Swedish) Crypto AG products, a
true natural random noise source generates the random key
patterns for both encryption and decryption sequences. A
problem there is that the decrypt sequence MUST be identical
to the encrypt sequence and that decrypt sequence transported
to a recipient. With the DES and similar PRSG-driven
sequences, the decrypt key is NOT required to be sent
separately...all that is required is to set the sequence at
some pre-determined state (the "code key" enters that) and
this aligns the sequence with the received sequence...a sync
is possible and decrypt can proceed.

As to "simple algorithm" periodicity, a 913 year pattern
repeat at a 10 MHz clock is quite long. That was achieved
with a 2^33-1 sequence bit pattern Exclusive-ORed with a
2^25-1 bit pattern. Each of the individual PRSGs had NO
common factors in periodicity so they Ex-ORed to a pattern
of 2.88 x 10^17 clock periods. That could be implemented
on any PC (I did that just for funzies) with a 2 GHz clock
and sequence faster than the hardware version clock at
10 MHz. So that one repeated about every 100 years...

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

The humans-replacing-monkeys (at the KGB) was taken from
David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" and was a quote from
someone else.

Today, at this "late" hour of 5:15 PM PDT, thousands of
WLANs are very busy within RF range of one another, NOT
interfering with each other thanks to some clever and
longer PRSGs. All those WLANs can also synchronize with
one another should they have to start from power-down
condition.

Add to that the garage door openers which have a very short
data burst on an RF carrier...add millions more in remote
keyless entry automobile "watch fob" transmitters. Their
pattern security is so good that they CAN and HAVE replaced
mechanical counterparts in any environment. [yes, the auto
fob transmitters have keys attached as a security in case
the car battery goes kafooey...and for the mental/emotional
security of the numbnuts conservatives who don't trust those
new-fangled digital gizmos]

For pseudo-random number generation in theory, along with
tests on things therein being random, there are 155 pages
worth of good stuff in Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming," Chapter 3, Volume 2. I have the
three-volume set and will entertain any offers of
purchase (plus shipping costs)...provided I can trust
the buyer (this group doesn't ensure my trust much...).

bit bit

wrote in message
ups.com...
From: John Smith on Jul 29, 1:12 pm

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...

Ahem...those "number stations" on HF aren't for sports scores or
lottery numbers... :-)

A true "random number generator" has escaped being ever realized in a
practical
form.

Untrue, John. PRSG (Pseudo-Random Sequence Generators) have been
in common use in both communications and instrumentation for about
three decades now. Using just 9 standard digital logic packages
with a 10 MHz clock, the PRSG I built for instrumentation would
not repeat until 913 years had passed. Reference: Electronics
Designer's Casebook Number 3, a collection of Electronics
magazine articles published between February '78 and January '79.
I was the author of that. "Electronics" magazine was a bi-weekly
industry/subscription periodical published by McGraw-Hill; McGraw
Hill morphed it into four separate monthlies.

The "random noise" from the background radiation of the universe comes
very, very close.

No, does NOT "come close," that IS the definition of random.

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...

Sigh. PERIODICITY is at question? I would say that a repeat
period of a century or more is pretty dang good. Periodicity
greater than that is found in the DES and some of the algorithms
at the NSA.

SOME finite periodicity is NECESSARY to set code keys and thus
enabling a decode to start to prepare to get ready to begin.
That just cannot be done with true random noise thingies.

In some of the Swiss (formerly Swedish) Crypto AG products, a
true natural random noise source generates the random key
patterns for both encryption and decryption sequences. A
problem there is that the decrypt sequence MUST be identical
to the encrypt sequence and that decrypt sequence transported
to a recipient. With the DES and similar PRSG-driven
sequences, the decrypt key is NOT required to be sent
separately...all that is required is to set the sequence at
some pre-determined state (the "code key" enters that) and
this aligns the sequence with the received sequence...a sync
is possible and decrypt can proceed.

As to "simple algorithm" periodicity, a 913 year pattern
repeat at a 10 MHz clock is quite long. That was achieved
with a 2^33-1 sequence bit pattern Exclusive-ORed with a
2^25-1 bit pattern. Each of the individual PRSGs had NO
common factors in periodicity so they Ex-ORed to a pattern
of 2.88 x 10^17 clock periods. That could be implemented
on any PC (I did that just for funzies) with a 2 GHz clock
and sequence faster than the hardware version clock at
10 MHz. So that one repeated about every 100 years...

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

The humans-replacing-monkeys (at the KGB) was taken from
David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" and was a quote from
someone else.

Today, at this "late" hour of 5:15 PM PDT, thousands of
WLANs are very busy within RF range of one another, NOT
interfering with each other thanks to some clever and
longer PRSGs. All those WLANs can also synchronize with
one another should they have to start from power-down
condition.

Add to that the garage door openers which have a very short
data burst on an RF carrier...add millions more in remote
keyless entry automobile "watch fob" transmitters. Their
pattern security is so good that they CAN and HAVE replaced
mechanical counterparts in any environment. [yes, the auto
fob transmitters have keys attached as a security in case
the car battery goes kafooey...and for the mental/emotional
security of the numbnuts conservatives who don't trust those
new-fangled digital gizmos]

For pseudo-random number generation in theory, along with
tests on things therein being random, there are 155 pages
worth of good stuff in Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming," Chapter 3, Volume 2. I have the
three-volume set and will entertain any offers of
purchase (plus shipping costs)...provided I can trust
the buyer (this group doesn't ensure my trust much...).

bit bit




Hello, Len

Oh, come on! There are some folks you can trust. You can trust me!

Would you have a spare 10 or 20 grand you can loan me until payday?

When's payday? I dunno, you're the one that's working.

))

So long as the key is changed *before* any repeat of the pattern, no harm is
done - at least I would suspect.

Just remember, one dot if by land and two dots if by sea .... or is that one
dash?

Hey, care to loan me 50K?



73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA

Len:

Many computer studies have been done on those numbers stations attempting to
correlate them with detectable events/changes/occurrences in the world--to
deduce what they are about. Last time I really checked, some were claiming it
had to do with banks, markets, money...

That is all wet?

John

wrote in message
ups.com...
From: John Smith on Jul 29, 1:12 pm

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...

Ahem...those "number stations" on HF aren't for sports scores or
lottery numbers... :-)

A true "random number generator" has escaped being ever realized in a
practical
form.

Untrue, John. PRSG (Pseudo-Random Sequence Generators) have been
in common use in both communications and instrumentation for about
three decades now. Using just 9 standard digital logic packages
with a 10 MHz clock, the PRSG I built for instrumentation would
not repeat until 913 years had passed. Reference: Electronics
Designer's Casebook Number 3, a collection of Electronics
magazine articles published between February '78 and January '79.
I was the author of that. "Electronics" magazine was a bi-weekly
industry/subscription periodical published by McGraw-Hill; McGraw
Hill morphed it into four separate monthlies.

The "random noise" from the background radiation of the universe comes
very, very close.

No, does NOT "come close," that IS the definition of random.

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...

Sigh. PERIODICITY is at question? I would say that a repeat
period of a century or more is pretty dang good. Periodicity
greater than that is found in the DES and some of the algorithms
at the NSA.

SOME finite periodicity is NECESSARY to set code keys and thus
enabling a decode to start to prepare to get ready to begin.
That just cannot be done with true random noise thingies.

In some of the Swiss (formerly Swedish) Crypto AG products, a
true natural random noise source generates the random key
patterns for both encryption and decryption sequences. A
problem there is that the decrypt sequence MUST be identical
to the encrypt sequence and that decrypt sequence transported
to a recipient. With the DES and similar PRSG-driven
sequences, the decrypt key is NOT required to be sent
separately...all that is required is to set the sequence at
some pre-determined state (the "code key" enters that) and
this aligns the sequence with the received sequence...a sync
is possible and decrypt can proceed.

As to "simple algorithm" periodicity, a 913 year pattern
repeat at a 10 MHz clock is quite long. That was achieved
with a 2^33-1 sequence bit pattern Exclusive-ORed with a
2^25-1 bit pattern. Each of the individual PRSGs had NO
common factors in periodicity so they Ex-ORed to a pattern
of 2.88 x 10^17 clock periods. That could be implemented
on any PC (I did that just for funzies) with a 2 GHz clock
and sequence faster than the hardware version clock at
10 MHz. So that one repeated about every 100 years...

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

The humans-replacing-monkeys (at the KGB) was taken from
David Kahn's "The Codebreakers" and was a quote from
someone else.

Today, at this "late" hour of 5:15 PM PDT, thousands of
WLANs are very busy within RF range of one another, NOT
interfering with each other thanks to some clever and
longer PRSGs. All those WLANs can also synchronize with
one another should they have to start from power-down
condition.

Add to that the garage door openers which have a very short
data burst on an RF carrier...add millions more in remote
keyless entry automobile "watch fob" transmitters. Their
pattern security is so good that they CAN and HAVE replaced
mechanical counterparts in any environment. [yes, the auto
fob transmitters have keys attached as a security in case
the car battery goes kafooey...and for the mental/emotional
security of the numbnuts conservatives who don't trust those
new-fangled digital gizmos]

For pseudo-random number generation in theory, along with
tests on things therein being random, there are 155 pages
worth of good stuff in Donald E. Knuth's "The Art of
Computer Programming," Chapter 3, Volume 2. I have the
three-volume set and will entertain any offers of
purchase (plus shipping costs)...provided I can trust
the buyer (this group doesn't ensure my trust much...).

bit bit

From: "Jim Hampton" on Sat 30 Jul 2005 03:18


wrote in message
oups.com...
From: John Smith on Jul 29, 1:12 pm

an_old_friend:

Hello, Len

Oh, come on! There are some folks you can trust. You can trust me!

Of course. I trust you to write stuff in here about beer...

Would you have a spare 10 or 20 grand you can loan me until payday?

No. There's "trust" and there's "dumb****behavior."

Tsk. Your sales technique needs a LOT of work...!

When's payday? I dunno, you're the one that's working.

Some of the time. I don't HAVE to, but it's fun to keep one's
hand in some of the time.

So long as the key is changed *before* any repeat of the pattern, no harm is
done - at least I would suspect.

Depends on the length of the sequence and your analysis tools.

If only 9 stock chips can make a sequence that is 2.8 x 10^17
bits long (periodicity), DOES IT MATTER?

Just remember, one dot if by land and two dots if by sea .... or is that one
dash?

Hey, care to loan me 50K?

Paul Revere, did you go and sell all your silverware stock and
get drunk again?!? Geez...

Remember: "One dot if by land, two dots if by sea, hear three
dots you better get your S out of there cuz' they commin in
fast by air!"

dit bit

From: John Smith on Jul 29, 6:08 pm

Len:

10mhz?
My gawd man, I can walk that fast!

Heh heh heh...we'll just put you down on a bench with a good
scope, warm up the soldering iron, hand you a bunch of DIPs
and see if all your gate delays will allow you to get all of
the sequence states in order... :-)

Reset the time to about 1976 with conventional TTL DIPs, well
before the "HC" CMOS zilch-gate-delay technology was developed.
It was also well before the GIGAHertz-clock PCs appeared. At
best the PC clocks were struggling to keep up at 10 MHz (at
least the affordable ones) and microprocessors running at that
clock rate were "inconceivable."

I stand behind what I said, no perfect random number generators exist, if you
need a really good one--it can't be done with computer algorithms (but, the one
doing our lottery is a really **** poor one--probably worse than your "no
repeats for 913 year one @ 10mhz" even... grin

John, that's why they call it a PSEUDO-random sequence generator.
PSEUDO, "close enough" but not exact.

I gave up playing any Lotto years ago. I won all of $55 and
spent at least three times that in order to "win" that. It
was a cheap thrill while it lasted. :-)

Just because YOU didn't win anything is not a reason to be
accusatory. :-)

It most EXACTLY becomes a question of, "How good of a random number generator
do you need?"

Depends on the application. If you want to scramble (encrypt)
voice/data/video/whatever, you want one to SYNCHRONIZE the
unscrambler (decrypt) to enable restoration to the original.
That's where the PSEUDO-random thing comes in.

PRSGs are invaluable in certain kinds of measurements that
require "noise" added...and then that "noise" subtracted in
order to "see" whatever non-random stuff is there. One of
those is building stability (especially for robustness
during earthquakes). H-P Test and Measurement Div (Agilent)
had a good series of AppNotes on that with a high-power
shaker (low-power compared to quakes) "modulated" with a
PRSG and the sync off of the PRSG used to subtract the
deliberate shaking from vibration sensors in order to gain
the resonant modes of the building. Another series of App
Notes described a similar method to extract resonances in
electronic circuits, even do a pseuod-reconstruct of frequency
response. That was three decades ago.

If you get into any metrology at all, you WILL find that this
"artificial noise" is an accepted practice in many physical
analyses from mechanics of structures to electronics. It just
CANNOT be done any other way except by PSUEDO-random
techniques.

I grant you, most apps do not need that good of one, games of chance in
reno/las vegas are ran off damn poor ones...

Tsk. Sounds like you've been to Vegas and haven't won much?

:-)

No problem to me. Wife and I will be in Vegas along about
the beginning of October and try a few of those games...
along with the other R&R available.

We use electronic banking methods a lot now for personal
finances. Quick, easy, and COMFORTABLY SECURE coding that
we can depend on. Nobody has hacked our bank accounts
yet. The worst we can expect is some doofus courier
"losing" a back-up tape during physical transport.

Also, if you read about egg at princeton.edu, you will see that computer random
number generators are really a bad idea, the human mind can influence
results... on some quantum-metaphysical level it seems the mind has powers
which we have only guessed about in fairy tales... I leave that to your
further research however...

Yah, yah, yah. You are beginning to sound like a "small medium
at large," John. Or, you read the same series of science-
fiction stories in old ANALOG magazines as I did! :-)

"Egg?" Edgerton, Germehausen, and Grier, the company?
"The Cuckoo's Egg" by an astronomer-turned-hacker-catcher?
[that's a BOOK if anyone else is looking in and wondering
what the fork we are talking about...]

In THIS newsgrope we've got "state-of-the-art" radio amateurs
who insist and insist and insist that morse code comms are
WAY, WAY faster than any (hack, ptui) TTY and MUCH, MUCH
better (and "easier") than sending text messages over a cell
phone! Just ask them and they will issue Pronouncements to
that effect! [and they HAVE] Their spiritual metaphysics
will defeat ordinary physical laws three ways from Sunday!

Remember Len, we really do agree on most though... or, close enough...

Not really...but, carry on, auld chap... :-)


bit bat

From: "John Smith" on Fri 29 Jul 2005 20:38

Len:

Many computer studies have been done on those numbers stations attempting to
correlate them with detectable events/changes/occurrences in the world--to
deduce what they are about. Last time I really checked, some were claiming it
had to do with banks, markets, money...

That is all wet?

As "wet" as the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Don't go there...

wet bet