#random-number-generator

Random number generator challenge: 202-Forgotten history

How-to: Why is my /dev/random so slow when using dd? #development #dev #solution

Why is my /dev/random so slow when using dd?

I am trying to semi-securely erase a bunch of hard drives. The following is working at 20-50Mb/s

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

But

dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda

seems not to work. Also when I type

dd if=/dev/random of=stdout

It only gives me a few bytes regardless of what I pass it for bs= and count=

Am I using /dev/random wrong? What other info…

Solution: How do I get /dev/random to work on an Ubuntu virtual machine? #dev #fix #development

How do I get /dev/random to work on an Ubuntu virtual machine?

Apparently, /dev/random is based on hardware interrupts or similar unpredictable aspects of physical hardware. Since virtual machines don’t have physical hardware, running cat /dev/random within a virtual machine produces nothing. I’m using Ubuntu Server 11.04 as the host and guest, with libvirt/KVM.

I need to set-up Kerberos inside…

Fixed: How are pseudorandom and truly random numbers different and why does it matter? #solution #development #answer

How are pseudorandom and truly random numbers different and why does it matter?

I’ve never quite got this. Just say you write a small program in any language at all which rolls some dice (just using dice as an example). After 600,000 rolls, each number would have been rolled around 100,000 times, which is what I’d expect.

Why are there websites dedicated to ‘true randomness’? Surely, given the…