[Beowulf] OT: public random numbers?

[Vincent Diepeveen]

In a world where you don't trust others, using MD5 is out of the  
question. It's not safe. It's possible to fake a MD5 sum
by modifying the number to whatever you wish (if it is enough random  
data) and then add something, with just a small correction
to the data to again get the md5sum that was posted on the website.

Vincent

On Aug 12, 2011, at 5:21 PM, David Mathog wrote:

> Robert G. Brown wrote:
>
>>  Everybody must be able to obtain it
>>> freely from a web connection.
>>
>>    http://www.random.org/
>>
>
> Nice site.  They have something that is very close, the pregenerated
> random files, from which a small set of digits may be extracted,  
> and the
> files themselves have MD5 checksums (but are not signed).
> They also support https.  It comes up a little short on criteria 1 (we
> really don't know what is going on behind the scenes) and 6 (it is a
> single site.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Mathog
> mathog at caltech.edu
> Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech
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