Ask HN: What is the best test for statistical randomness?

Posted by _coldfire on Monday August 28, 2017 @05:17AM
from the ask-hn dept.

Current choices seem to be NIST SP-800-22, DieHarder and Test U01, all of which certainly overlap.

Why is there no battery of tests that includes standards developed by different countries and their obvious biases?

( 4 comments | 13 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: What is the best test for statistical randomness? by aappleby on Monday August 28, 2017 @12:17PM (#15117668)

Broad statistical tests are good enough for most all non-crypto RNGs - once you pass DieHarder you're probably good enough for practially all common RNG uses.

Breaking crypto RNGs is a subtle enough art that having a standardized set of tests wouldn't actually prove anything useful - it would be like saying "We tried every key in our collection on this new padlock and none of them worked, therefore the padlock is secure."

-Austin, author of SMHasher

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: What is the best test for statistical randomness? by potus_putin on Wednesday August 30, 2017 @06:34AM (#15131016)

http://random.mat.sbg.ac.at/tests/ "On this page, you will find information on tests for uniform random number generators (RNGs)"

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Re:Ask HN: What is the best test for statistical randomness? by rvr_ on Monday August 28, 2017 @10:51AM (#15116868)

Lossless compression algorithms. True randomness should yield near 0% compression ratios.

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Re:Ask HN: What is the best test for statistical randomness? by janwas on Tuesday August 29, 2017 @01:46AM (#15122345)

PractRand is a useful test suite.

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