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:

    Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.
    Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, ch. 2 (1991)

    Most women of [the WW II] generation have but one image of good motherhood—the one their mothers embodied. . . . Anything done “for the sake of the children” justified, even ennobled the mother’s role. Motherhood was tantamount to martyrdom during that unique era when children were gods. Those who appeared to put their own needs first were castigated and shunned—the ultimate damnation for a gender trained to be wholly dependent on the acceptance and praise of others.
    Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)

    ... the random talk of people who have no chance of immortality and thus can speak their minds out has a setting, often, of lights, streets, houses, human beings, beautiful or grotesque, which will weave itself into the moment for ever.
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

    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)