Forum Message
| City: | Milan  | | Personal Data: | Male, born: May 12 1971 | | Membership | 22years 58days ago. | | Last Login | 15years 340days ago. | | Last Move | 15years 321days ago. | Ashtar is currently  | Send a mail to Ashtar |
| | Message text Answer in three points, in the hope to make things clear:
a) all random number generators used on computers are more correctly called pseudo-random number generators, the good one as the bad ones, since they approximate a true random process by means of some (generally chaotic) deterministic algorithm.
b) From your link:
(...) A real danger with PRNGs is that most computer language libraries include a large set of pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs) which are inappropriate for security purposes. Let me say it again: do not use typical random number generators for security purposes. Typical library PRNGs are intended for use in simulations, games, and so on; they are not sufficiently random for use in security functions such as key generation. Most non-cryptographic library PRNGs are some variation of ``linear congruential generators', where the ``next' random value is computed as "(aX+b) mod m" (where X is the previous value). Good linear congruential generators are fast and have useful statistical properties, making them appropriate for their intended uses. The problem with such PRNGs is that future values can be easily deduced by an attacker (though they may appear random). (...)
The problem pointed out here is indeed correlation, which means that the next roll of your pseudo-die is not completely independent from the previous as it should be in a completely random delta-correlated sequence (as the one you should expect by rolling an "ideal die"). So while all "rolled" numbers, taken individually, appear with the very same probability, some sequences of numbers may appear with an higher probability with respect to others, i.e. 2 4 5 2 6 6 1 may appear more frequently then 3 5 2 6 1 6 1.
c) Period: all pseudo-random number generators have a period over which they start to repeat themselves. In bad ones it can be as small as a few thousands, while in good ones it can get as high as 2^(219937) − 1...
These and many others issues can create problems for criptography applications or for Monte Carlo simulations (where you may have to draw sequences of 10^11 random numbers). On the other hand, in our case any match has is own psudo-random sequence, initialized by the server clock at the time of it being opened (as much as I understand the procedure followed by our skymasters), so it is on this basis that I claim any random number generator to be good enough for playing BM...
have (random) fun and see you in the skies |
|
|
|
|