New PRNG method!

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Hello, All!

I was just thinking about how to generate random numbers,
when I hit upon an interesting idea:

If the internet is so huge and complex, why not, say, use 
the least significant bits of ping times from random internet 
hosts as seeds for a PRNG? (Practical Random Number Gen.)

You could then break the resulting binary value into 128-bit
blocks and modulus/xor each with a stream of random numbers taken
from a keyboard timing.

After all this, you could wash it with a secure symmetric 
cryptosystem such as idea in CBC mode.

Any thoughts, comments?

	-olcay

- --
"For he who lives more lives than one, |) Olcay Cirit -- olcay@libtech.com
   more deaths than one must die"      (| http://www.libtech.com/olo2.html

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The fact that something is complex does not mean your end of
it can not be monitered.  You need to discover random numbers from
something very local to you, or your opponents can mess with your
numbers.  David Wagner posted something about how Mallet could muck
with your RNG if it was based on incoming packet checksums, back in
September.

	If you want good random numbers, track the mouse.  Don't go
looking outside your computer to things other computers do.

	Lastly, using collision-resistant hashing in considered
preferable to encrypting information.

Adam


Olcay Cirit wrote:

| If the internet is so huge and complex, why not, say, use
| the least significant bits of ping times from random internet
| hosts as seeds for a PRNG? (Practical Random Number Gen.)



| After all this, you could wash it with a secure symmetric
| cryptosystem such as idea in CBC mode.


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume

Olcay Cirit writes:
> PRNG? (Practical Random Number Gen.)

Incidentally, deliberately overloading a widely-used acronym with a 
similar (?) but distinct meaning is a Bad Thing, unless you're just out to 
confuse people.

Please, oh pretty please, consider reading some of the umpteen discussions
of proposed random and pseudorandom sources in the list archives and FAQs and 
books....    

-Lewis