From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Eggert Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: random doesn't feel very random Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2012 06:19:15 -0700 Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Message-ID: <50420B53.4030006@cs.ucla.edu> References: <876288yh72.fsf@kanis.fr> <87wr0livd4.fsf@Rainer.invalid> <83k3wfqtyx.fsf@gnu.org> <83vcfzosri.fsf@gnu.org> <5041626B.6080608@cs.ucla.edu> <87harirz13.fsf@Rainer.invalid> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1346505594 6148 80.91.229.3 (1 Sep 2012 13:19:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 13:19:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Achim Gratz Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Sep 01 15:19:51 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1T7nbx-0004Dd-9a for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:19:41 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:49249 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T7nbu-00042v-DT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:19:38 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:43336) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T7nbs-00042e-5R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:19:37 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T7nbr-0007ov-8R for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:19:36 -0400 Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([131.179.128.62]:53535) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1T7nbr-0007mb-2U for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 01 Sep 2012 09:19:35 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6FCD39E8017; Sat, 1 Sep 2012 06:19:27 -0700 (PDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at smtp.cs.ucla.edu Original-Received: from smtp.cs.ucla.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.cs.ucla.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id phAkfK+3W7Hc; Sat, 1 Sep 2012 06:19:27 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from [192.168.1.3] (pool-108-23-119-2.lsanca.fios.verizon.net [108.23.119.2]) by smtp.cs.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 373AE39E8008; Sat, 1 Sep 2012 06:19:27 -0700 (PDT) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120827 Thunderbird/15.0 In-Reply-To: <87harirz13.fsf@Rainer.invalid> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-Received-From: 131.179.128.62 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:152930 Archived-At: On 09/01/2012 12:19 AM, Achim Gratz wrote: > On systems having a better source of entropy (like > /dev/urandom), the init value should be taken from that source rather > than the "mix PID with current time" hack. This is on my list of things to do, as a gnulib project. Among other things, I plan to use the RDRAND instruction available on current Intel processors, as that's much faster and better than /dev/urandom. > allow packages to have a > private PRNG state bound to a variable and then each call to (random) > will advance the private state rather than the global one. That would make sense. Care to propose an exact API for that? Now's a good time to implement something like that, if we're going to do it.