Re: CONFIG_RANDOM option for 1.99.2

Theodore Y. Ts'o (tytso@mit.edu)
Fri, 17 May 1996 13:55:13 -0400


Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 09:44:46 +0200 (MET DST)
From: "Martin.Dalecki" <dalecki@namu23.Num.Math.Uni-Goettingen.de>

And finally random.c is not as random as You may beleve. Start it on an
otherwise not busy machine to see why! Yust do cat /dev/random and see
the random numbers coming precisely after any keybord hit. This isn't
acceptable for any number cruching, since those are mostly programms
which are supposed to run in core and on otherwise idle machines.

In fact it was a Montecarlo integration, which made me sceptical
about /dev/random or /dev/urandom.

"A tennis racket is not useful for playing golf. Therefore, a tennis
racket isn't useful for anything."

For a mathematician, your logic is awfully lousy.

- Ted