Random Number Generator Attack - Human Generation of Random Quantities

Human Generation of Random Quantities

Humans generally do poorly at generating random quantities. Magicians, professional gamblers and con artists depend on the predictability of human behavior. In World War II German code clerks were instructed to select three letters at random to be the initial rotor setting for each Enigma machine message. Instead some chose predictable values like their own or a girlfriend's initials, greatly aiding allied breaking of these encryption systems. Another example is the often predictable ways computer users choose passwords. (See Password cracking.)

Nevertheless, in the specific case of playing mixed strategy games, use of human gameplay entropy for randomness generation was studied by Ran Halprin and Moni Naor."Games for Extracting Randomness". http://www.neko.co.il/MAE-offline.html.

Read more about this topic:  Random Number Generator Attack

Famous quotes containing the words human, generation, random and/or quantities:

    Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)

    There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations.
    Patrick Henry Pearse (1879–1916)

    poor Felix Randal;
    How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
    When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
    Didst fettle for the great gray drayhorse his bright and battering
    sandal!
    Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)

    James Brown and Frank Sinatra are two different quantities in the universe. They represent two different experiences of the world.
    Imamu Amiri Baraka [Everett Leroi Jones] (b. 1934)