News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Convert standard Geiger counter to RNG. Parent comment

Re:Convert standard Geiger counter to RNG by stcredzero on Monday November 13, 2023 @08:14PM (#38257620)
Actually building a PRNG yourself would still be hard though!

Well, coming up with a crappy one isn't hard. Coming up with a new good one, with good efficiency is hard, though.

It would be cool if modern devices had a solid state radiation detector for this purpose.

Don't current chips already do this with noise from a diode? Quick google: Yes. There are quite a number of these sorts of methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generat...

Nothing is perfect, it turns out.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Convert standard Geiger counter to RNG by eternityforest on Monday November 13, 2023 @09:03PM (#38258022)
They do, but a regular diode noise source can't double as an actual radiation detector. I was thinking something like a SPAD diode or something, so everyone could have background radiation monitoring at all times and get an alert if someone mixed a cobalt source in the scrap metal used to make their furniture or whatever, or the nearby coal plant was puffing out radiation or something.
[ Parent | on HN ]