Pseudo-Random vs. True Random (2012)

Re:Pseudo-Random vs. True Random (2012) by andyljones on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @02:43AM (#23842061)

The link at the bottom of the post to the actual explanation is broken. Here's a web archive version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191106104440/http://cod.ifies....

TL;DR the default Windows random number generator is (was?) an LCG[1], and that's what PHP calls into by default.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_congruential_generator

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Re:Pseudo-Random vs. True Random (2012) by acqq on Wednesday July 15, 2020 @03:18AM (#23842236)

I'd expect it's fixed since PHP 7.1.0:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.rand.php

"Note: As of PHP 7.1.0, rand() uses the same random number generator as mt_rand(). To preserve backwards compatibility rand() allows max to be smaller than min as opposed to returning FALSE as mt_rand()."

Maybe somebody could run the code from the OP on Windows with a newer PHP and check?

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