Some Background
Santha and Vazirani proved that several bit streams with weak randomness can be combined to produce a higher-quality quasi-random bit stream. Even earlier, John von Neumann proved that a simple algorithm can remove a considerable amount of the bias in any bit stream which should be applied to each bit stream before using any variation of the Santha-Vazirani design. The field is termed entropy extraction and is the subject of active research (e.g., N Nisan, S Safra, R Shaltiel, A Ta-Shma, C Umans, D Zuckerman).
Read more about this topic: Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)